UPSC Civil Services exam Books & tips for History

History has been one of the 'most popular' optional subjects for mains. If you are not intimidated by the big syllabus, this subject has following advantages:

• Easier to grasp,
• No dearth of study material and
• Covers an important segment of General Studies paper on account of overlapping themes.

Books:

The books with star(*) mark are standard and must. Other books are supplementary.

Basic Material: NCERT and Agnihotri.*

Ancient History

1. Early India – Romilla Thaper*
2. Ashoka and Decline of Mauryan Empire – Romilla Thaper
3. Ancient India – D.N. Jha*
4. Ancient India – V.D.Mahajan
5. South Indian History – Nilakanta Sastry*
6. The wonder that was India- AL Basham*
7. Ancient India – R.C.Mazumdar

Medieval India

1. Advanced study in the history of Medieval India – JL Mehta ( 3 parts)*
2. Medieval India- Satish Chandra ( 2 Parts)*
3. The Sultanate of Delhi – A L Srivastava*
4. The Mughal Empire - A L Srivastava*
5. The wonder that was India- Rizvi

Modern India

1. Modern India – Grover & Grover
2. India's Struggle for freedom – Bipin Chandra*
3. Modern India – Sumit Sarkar*
4. Social background of Indian History – A R Desai

World History

1. Europe since the French Revolution – L. Mukherjee*
2. IGNOU material