REVIEW ARTICLE 153 technology. The two together led to the emergence of the sciences of philosophy and historiography, based on Marxism. Kosambi's findings were taken up and further developed by a generation of Marxist scholars like R.S. Sharma, Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib and a number of their colleagues. Each of them has made his or her contribution individually to the development of Marxist historiography and all of them together have thrown light on the dark comers of Indian history. Irfan Habib among them has now thought it opportune to bring out a collection of his essays in a book appropriately titled Essays in Indian History to which he adds the sub-title Towards a Marxist Perception*. Habib explains this sub-title by saying that he does not claim that his collection of essays does constitute the Marxist perception itself; it is only his effort to mov? towards the development of Marxist perception. Considering the fact that the Marxist perception 6f Indian history is a post-independence development, the reader would be grateful to the author that he has used all the findings made by his colleagues in the discipline, together with his own independent findings, and tried to bring out a more or less systematic history of India based on the theoretical principles of Marxism. He modestly claims in the preface of the book that his work is *only an endeavour towards a Marxist approach, rather than attainment of the application of such an approach in all its fullness.' The opening essay titled 'Problems of Marxist Historiography' is used by the author for discussing a number of theoretical precepts of the Marxist approach to Indian history; he goes into the essence of the Marxist approach to India's national movement. Quoting R.P. Dutt's India Today and my History of India's Freedom Struggle, he says that there is now 'a general understanding that the national movement was a united front of all classes of the Indian people, the peasantry, other petty-bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie and the working class, to the exclusion of the big landowners and princes. The major nationalist organisation, the Indian National Congress, did not always reflect the united front, although in the late 1930s it came close to such a position.' Habib demarcates himself from another eminent historian, Bipan Chandra, who belittles the achievements of the left during the national movement. The creation of the organised kisan movement and the trade unions was, says Habib, mainly the handwork of the Communists and their allies; that cannot be forgotten. He gives a general warning: 'I would urge that we should treat the national Movement (which was always larger than the Congress) as a common heritage. All assessment of individuals playing roles in it must be tempered by the realisation that they stood up in opposition to the