Synopsis The fourteen essays comprising this anthology were written over a long stretch of time. They followed the author's developing academic interests in the footsteps of the rapidly evolving contours of the discipline of history itself in the second half of the twentieth century from dead certitudes to delicious ambiguities. The major chunk of the volume centres on the creation and circulation of ideas of ground level as much as at the highest echelons of court society. Other essays engage with questions of economy, society and technology. These are all in the nature of explorations, just as all historiographical endeavours are, in the end. All of these have been published earlier; some date from the 1970's others still in press. Many had appeared in a book over a decade and a half ago, but now unavailable, a major reason for the making of this anthology.