Modern History Preparation Resources For UPSC
Modern Indian history is a important part of the UPSC syllabus both for the mains and the preliminary examination. In the mains examination, it comes under the General Studies Paper I. Modern history is a very vast subject and it encompasses topics related to the British hegemony establishment in India, society transformations in India and politics, economics and culture as a result of it, the freedom struggle and various phases of it, personalities related to the freedom struggle and so on. While reading modern history, it is easy to get sucked into the sea of information and analyses and lose track of your IAS preparation in the process. This would be very detrimental to your UPSC Civil Services dream. So aspirants are advised to cover modern Indian history very smartly according to the needs of the examination.
Modern History syllabus for the preliminary and mains examination
Before starting your preparation for modern history, all the aspirants are advised to review the syllabus for the same and then plan your studies.
- History of India and Indian National Movements
- Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.
- Modern Indian history from about the middle of the eighteenth century until the present- significant events, personalities, issues.
- The Freedom Struggle – its various stages and important key contributions and people from India.
- Post-independence consolidation and reorganization within the country.
- History of the world will include events from 18th century such as industrial revolution, world wars, redrawn of national boundaries, colonization, political philosophies like communism, capitalism, socialism etc and their forms and effect on society.
After understanding the syllabus we can divide syllabus into four parts:
- Modern Indian History (common for both Preliminary and Mains Examination)
Before Freedom, After Freedom
- Medieval Indian History (common to both)
- Ancient Indian History (common to both)
- World History (Only in Mains)
Sources For Indian History
- NCERT ( 11th,12th)
- Spectrum for Modern India
- India’s struggle for independence by Bipan Chandra
- India after independence by Bipan Chandra
- Last Year questions Paper