Civilizations: Nostalgia and Utopia - Hardcover

Krishna's discourses in this volume span a range of inquiries-parallels between Indian and Western civilizations; interconnection between action and knowledge; anatomies of the profound and the profane, the ideal and the actual; and other such intriguing lines of philosophical questioning.

The author asks the readers to rise up to the challenges of the now, as the present consists not merely of past achievements but also of the yet-to-be-achieved goals of the future.

The chapters in the book are compiled from a series of lectures delivered by Krishna at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, India, first in 1967, and then in 2005. The book is a dialogue between two Daya Krishnas, one of 1967 and the other of 2005. The latter addresses the former and uses the second series of lectures to broaden the scope of the first.

Daya Krishna (1924–2007) was one of the most original minds of contemporary India. He served as pro–Vice Chancellor of Rajasthan University, and was a trailblazer in juxtaposing Indian and Western philosophies and opening up new vistas of thought. He was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian Council for Philosophical Research.

An interdisciplinary thinker and a prolific writer, Daya Krishna has authored numerous works, a partial list of which includes Prolegomena to Any Future Historiography of Culture and Civilizations (2005); Developments in Indian Philosophy from the Eighteenth Century Onwards (2001); New Perspectives in Indian Philosophy (2000); Bhakti: A Contemporary Discussion (2000); History, Culture and Truth (1999); The Problematic and Conceptual Structure of Classical Indian Thought about Man, Society and Polity (1996); Indian Philosophy: A Counter Perspective (1991, 1996,2006).