Was there anything from the ancient civilization that is taking over into the latest civilizations and into the latest cultures?
And this raises us a very fundamental question in historical research: How do cultures transmit what they think is important from their own culture (which then declines) to another culture which is on the rise?
Identities, which are essentials to all cultures whether they be sophisticate urban culture or agricultural cultures are never permanent and never unchanging. Identities constantly change.. and so one of the interest that we have as historians is to see precisely how these identities change.
Romila Thapar
