The present book The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions in the Historiography of Rajasthan by Professor Shankar Goyal is the first and only account of its kind on the subject. The Khyats are considered as the earliest sources of Rajput history of medieval Rajasthan. Therefore in its Part I Professor Goyal examines some prominent Khyats, such as, Muhnot Nainsi ri Khyat, Bankidas ri Khyat, Dayaldas ri Khyat, Jodhpur Rajya ki Khyat of Ai Dan Khidia, Marwar ri Khyat of Tilok Chand Joshi, and Jaisalmer ri Khyat of Ajit Singh Mehta. 
In Part II Professor Goyal appropriately demarcates the various traditions that has dominated in the modern historiography of Rajasthan. The first tradition extended from James Tod to the dawn of Indian independence wherein the trend was of writing the chronological histories of the dynasties. The second tradition commenced from the mid-20th century showing a new trend of writing the history of Rajasthan against the perspective of national history. And lastly, a few more traditions that developed simultaneously in the later half of the 20th century were the writing of regional history, the study of the life of common people, the nature of freedom struggle or the liberation movements, poetic compositions about historical characters, and the study of culture of Rajasthan. While exercising his discretion in a fair manner Professor Goyal has chosen eleven historians, namely, James Tod, Shyamaldas, G.H. Ojha, V.N. Reu, Dasharatha Sharma, S.R. Goyal, G.N. Sharma, R.P. Vyas, L.S. Rathore, G.S.L. Devra and Sobhag Mathur, for being included in this part because they have been the pioneers in different traditions or areas of the history of Rajasthan.
The story of history writing in modern and contemporary Rajasthan further continues in Part III of Professor Goyal's work which includes some more historians who have contributed immensely to enrich the history and culture of Rajasthan and are pioneers in their respective fields of study. These include M.S. Jain, K.S. Gupta, V.S. Bhatnagar, S.P. Gupta, Dilbagh Singh, T.K. Mathur, Vinita Parihar and Shankar Goyal himself.
All in all, Professor Goyal's The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions in the Historiography of Rajasthan is definitely the first and only account of its kind, at once critical, scholarly and uptodate. No, scholar wishing to work on the subject can afford ignore his book.