The science of history proceeds no doubt as the detailed criticism of sociological generalisations … of generalisations so rudimentary and so little analysed that they constitute primitive archetypal images lurking in the background of the historian's consciousness rather than a formed system of ideas. In South Asian studies such images are the simple dichotomies of East and West, tradition and modernity, continuity and change, status and contract, feudalism and capitalism, caste and class … In the present age, the historian must content himself with the role of humble camp follower to the sociologist … But like the sweeper in my regiment who carried the thunder-box of the sahibs through the Arakan campaign there is the hope that in the end it is he and not they who will be awarded the decoration.