This is the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) social science history textbook for Class VIII, Our Pasts III. It is an English medium (Roman script) book — the complete text, exercises, maps and captions are in English, and there is no Hindi content in it. It is the prescribed history component of the Class 8 social science course for CBSE schools and for state boards that follow the NCERT curriculum.
Our Pasts III covers modern India — from the establishment of Company rule to Independence and Partition. It opens by asking how the modern period is dated and how historians work with colonial records, then traces the East India Company's expansion from Plassey to the Doctrine of Lapse. The chapters that follow take up the land revenue settlements and what they did to the countryside, the crafts and industries displaced by colonial trade, tribal societies and the revolts of Birsa Munda and others, and the rebellion of 1857 and its aftermath. The later chapters move to the social and cultural side: colonial education policy and the debates around it, women's education and reform movements, the caste movements and the leaders who led them, art and architecture under colonial rule, and finally the national movement from 1870 to 1947 and Partition.
This is the most directly examinable of the school history books for competitive-exam candidates. Modern Indian history — the revenue systems, the tribal and peasant uprisings, 1857, the reform movements, and the phases of the freedom struggle — carries the heaviest weightage in the UPSC, RPSC and RSSB history sections, and the sequence and causation are set out here more clearly than in most thicker reference works. Aspirants are routinely advised to read the NCERT history books from Class 6 to Class 12 before any standard reference, and this volume is the modern-period core of that reading.
The chapters are supported by maps, paintings, photographs, extracts from colonial documents and contemporary writings, and "Let's recall", "Let's discuss" and "Let's do" exercises at the end.
Key Features:
English medium book — complete content written in English (Roman script), no Hindi content
Published by NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training)
Social Science — Our Pasts III, Textbook in History for Class VIII (Class 8)
Prescribed for CBSE schools and state boards following the NCERT curriculum
Covers modern India from Company rule to Independence and Partition
Covers How, When and Where — dating the modern period and colonial records
Covers From Trade to Territory — the Company establishes power
Covers Ruling the Countryside — Permanent Settlement, Ryotwari and indigo
Covers Tribals, Dikus and the Vision of a Golden Age — Birsa Munda and tribal revolts
Covers When People Rebel — 1857 and after
Covers Civilising the "Native", Educating the Nation — colonial education policy
Covers Women, Caste and Reform — reform movements and caste movements
Covers The Making of the National Movement, 1870s–1947
Maps, paintings, photographs and extracts from colonial documents throughout
Chapter-end "Let's recall", "Let's discuss" and "Let's do" exercises
Base textbook for the CBSE Class 8 social science examination
Carries the modern Indian history that competitive examinations weight most heavily
Also widely used as foundation reading for UPSC, RPSC, RSSB and other competitive examinations
Standard NCERT text — the base book before any reference or guide
यह पुस्तक राष्ट्रीय शैक्षिक अनुसंधान और प्रशिक्षण परिषद (NCERT) द्वारा कक्षा VIII (कक्षा 8) के लिए निर्धारित सामाजिक विज्ञान — इतिहास की पाठ्यपुस्तक Our Pasts III है। ध्यान दें: यह पुस्तक पूर्णतः अंग्रेज़ी भाषा एवं रोमन लिपि में है — इसमें हिन्दी भाषा का प्रयोग नहीं है। इसमें आधुनिक भारत का इतिहास सम्मिलित है — कंपनी शासन की स्थापना (व्यापार से साम्राज्य तक), भू-राजस्व व्यवस्थाएँ (स्थायी बंदोबस्त, रैयतवाड़ी एवं नील की खेती), आदिवासी समाज एवं बिरसा मुंडा जैसे विद्रोह, 1857 का विद्रोह एवं उसके परिणाम, औपनिवेशिक शिक्षा नीति, महिलाएँ-जाति एवं सुधार आंदोलन, औपनिवेशिक काल की कला एवं वास्तुकला तथा राष्ट्रीय आंदोलन (1870-1947) एवं विभाजन। मानचित्र, चित्र, औपनिवेशिक दस्तावेज़ों के अंश तथा अध्यायांत अभ्यास प्रश्न सम्मिलित हैं। UPSC, RPSC एवं RSSB में आधुनिक भारतीय इतिहास का भारांक सर्वाधिक होता है, और इसका आधार यही पुस्तक मानी जाती है।
