History Optional: Minimum Books & Resources for UPSC CSE

Updated on 25 February 2024 by IAS CENTRE


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Welcome to UPSC Civil Service Exams preparation.

In this post we will know about minimum books and resources required for History Optional Papers for UPSC civil service Exams.

Note: you can see here the books and resources that are required for the UPSC civil service Prelims and mains exams.


BOOKS & RESOURCES:

Syllabus

It’s the most important resource apart from previous years questions. 

So you should always refer to it before reading any resources. 

It acts as a guiding light throughout your preparation for this exam by making you understand which topics are useful for the exam.


Previous Years Question Papers

The next thing you need after syllabus is previous years questions paper. 

It helps in testing and identifying the strong as well as weak areas of your preparation. 

It also helps in identifying the topics which are more important than others.


Books


Ancient Indian History

  • A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: from the Stone Age to the 12th Century by Upinder Singh  Buy


Medieval Indian History

  • Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals-Delhi Sultanat (1206-1526) – 1 by Satish Chandra. Buy
  • Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals- Mughal Empire (1526-1748) – 2 by Satish Chandra. Buy
  • Medieval India : The Study Of A Civlization by Irfan Habib. Buy


Modern Indian History

  • From Plassey to Partition and After A History of Modern India by Sekhar Bandyopadhyay. Buy
  • India’s Struggle for Independence by Bipan Chandra. Buy
  • India since Independence by Bipan Chandra. Buy


World History

  • A History of the Modern World: An Outline by Ranjan Chakrabarti. Buy
  • Mastering Modern World History by Norman Lowe. Buy


Map for History Optional

  • History Through Maps. Buy


News Papers

  • the Hindu

OR

  • the Indian Express


These are not the exhaustive list of books and resources, but minimum required list are given here. 

If you need any extra resources, you are free to use it.

For the books and resources related to UPSC prelims exams see here.

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