The documentation of Bangalore history in its various dimensions in English language is extensive and voluminous, compared to the quantity of same work done in regional language Kannada.
The British selected the city to build their Cantonment. Since the year 1800 many travellers have come to the city and recorded their observations in the form of notes, letters and books. Dr. Francis Buchanan and a few other such visitors have given graphic description of the city. Equally important are the writings of the lady traveller Julia Charlotte Maitland. Her book Letters From Madras is a collection of letters published in 1846. She enters the city on October 12, 1839 . Her 26th and 27th letter begins with ‘I am charmed with Bangalore’. She compares the scenario here with that of Madras at that time. A careful study of the records of these visitors give us their perception of our city. British Commissioner L.B. Bowring’s Eastern Experiences is an interesting work to read. However, enormous details given by Benjamin Lewis Rice in his Gazetteer reverberates with regional fervour.
A handbook brought out in 1905 by the British Administration is a very useful publication. It was an excellent guide to get a glimpse of the city. Interestingly, It contains the complete details of what was written on granite plate of Cenotaph which was demolished in October 1964,
In 1931, The City Municipal Council brought out City of Bangalore- Municipal Handbook.
It is full of rare photographs of various monuments and places of the city as they were in 1930s. Karnataka State Gazetteer on Bangalore district published later under the Chief Editorship of Dr. Suryanatha Kamath provided much needed reliable source of information for researchers and the general public as well.
Fazlul Hasan’s Bangalore Through the Centuries published in 1970 paved the way for a few others to write timeline based history of the city. Fazlul Hasan dedicates his work to the citizens of Bangalore to perpetuate their interest in the glorious annals of their city. The book is also known for its lucid English.
The City Beautiful by T.P. Issar (1988) is perhaps the first of its kind coffee table top book brought out to celebrate the architectural heritage and aesthetics of the city.
Anyone studying Cantonment cannot miss the priceless contributions made by Mrs. Janet Pott, Kora Chandy and Ronnie Johnson of ‘Our Bangalore Wallah’ fame in building the saga of Civil and Military Station.
Follow my Bangalorey Man by Paul Byron Norris was brought out in 1996, by The British Association for Cemeteries of South Asia formed in 1976. This work, in addition to the details of British families lived in Bangalore between 1923 to 1939, also gives some rare pictures of roads and houses in Cantonment. Bangalore-A story of a City by Maya Jayapal was released on December 19, 1997 during the inauguration of Bangalore-460, a three-day festival to commemorate the 460th birthday of the city, organised by my NGO AARAMBH (An Association for Reviving Awareness about Monuments of Bangalore Heritage) in association with INTACH, Bangalore. New version of Maya’s book Bangalore, Roots and Beyond “explores the allure that the city possesses for old-timers and the new migrants alike, and discusses its transition into the 21st century.”
Bengaluru to Bangalore, ( 2003) by T.V. Annaswamy is an urban history of the city from the pre-historic period to the end of 18th Century. The Promise of the Metropolis- Bangalore’s Twentieth Century by Janaki Nair (2005, Second edition, 2006) provides important insights on Bangalore’s recent growth, as well as elements it shares with other Indian cities.
Edited by Narendar Pani, Sindhu Radhakrishna and Kishore G. Bhat , Bengaluru, Bangalore, Bengaluru- Imaginations and their times(2010) focuses on the ‘imaginations’ that have determined the course of Bengaluru over the last two and a half centuries. It provides a new picture of Bengaluru’s history as well as a method of looking at the past that is quite different from most Indian historical studies.
Bangalore: Multiplicity by Dr. A. Ravindra is an attractively illustrated volume on Bangalore, published at the time of Global Investors Meet, 2012.
Yashaswini Sharma’s work Bangalore:The Early city. AD 1537-1799 was published in 2016. A practising architect and Researcher, Yashaswini Sharma strives to reach an understanding of the development of the city, focusing on the architecture and settlement pattern of its earliest urban area, the Pete and the oval fort. Aliyeh Rizvi is another well-known historian of the city. Her columns have covered varied dimensions of this vibrant city. Recently, she has written and curated ANOTHER world, tracing the glory of Bangalore Club ( Bangalore United Service Club) from 1868 to 2018. With many rare pictures and documents, the book is a source of reference
James Heitzman’s Network City- Planning in the formation of society in Bangalore, Deccan Traverses by Anuradha Mathur and Dilip Da Cunha, Stanley Carvalho’s Bangalore Blue a collection of essays by ‘true-blue Bangaloreans’ and Past and Curious, forty tales of good old Bangalore, Peter Colaco’s Bangalore- A Century of Tales from city and Cantonment (2003) with illustrations by Paul Fernandes, Pinging- from Bangalore, a blog novel by K.R. Chandrashekar, Bangalored by Eshwar Sundaresan on Expatriates, are all equally important works on the city.
The commemorative volumes and souvenirs of the jubilee celebrations of various organizations and institutions of the city also carry invaluable stories pertaining to our city Bangalore. .
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