The book is an attempt to understand history writing in India that focuses on changing perspectives about early India, such as, the move away from the epicentric approach in the 1970s to the focus on localities and sub-regions from historico-geographic blocks like the Gangetic heartland. Dealing with the histories of regions round Odisha and Chhattisgarh in particular, it contains a dozen papers on the differences and linkages between regions—the continued interplay and coexistence of the local and trans-regional elements—by studying various trends of historical development: the role of brahmanical ideology in the construction of caste, conception of the Kali Age in early India, role of varna in shaping early Oriya society and jati working of agrarian land systems, forms of protest and dissent and evolution of regional identities in Indian historiography.