Other than official records, biographies, memoirs, newspapers, autobiographies of prominent persons and records of travelers and pilgrims are other literary sources to know about the past events and history of a society.

Today, different types of surveys are done by government and private companies. Surveys can be done on the basis of demographic changes, incomes, employment, and interests, etc. Surveys can be done by questionnaire method or interview method. Governments find out about the information of young people in the school by the records and the records of school authorities.

The information in police reports tells us only about what officials thought, what they were interested in and what they wished to preserve for future generation. These records do not always help the historians understand what other people in the country felt and what lay behind their actions. However, the information from old newspapers tells us about the feelings and actions of common people of the country. This information may be affected by the personal views of the news editor, but from these, the historians can infer what common men thought about the incident.

The British believed that all important documents and letters needed to be carefully preserved. They wanted to preserve permanent records of every instruction, plan, policy, decision, agreement, and investigations. Thus, all these documents were carefully written and preserved. These documents helped them to reuse any previous information or decision when necessity arose. These documents were regarded as permanent records for the region, they administered. The British thought that to preserve important documents, it is very necessary to govern a country successfully.

James Mill divided Indian history into three periods-Hindu, Muslim and British. But this periodisation is not proper.
There were some problems with this periodisation as follows:
(i) It is improper to refer any period of history as 'Muslim' or 'Hindu' because a variety of faiths existed Simultaneously.
(ii) It is also not justified to characterise an age through the religion of the rulers of the time. During ancient period, all the rulers did not share the same faith.
(iii) Mill, through his periodisation suggested that only British rule could civilize India. He suggested that the British should conquer all the territories in India to ensure the enlightenment as if India was not capable of progress without British help.

Following are the features of modern age:
(i) Growth of democratic ideas and institution.
(ii) Industrialization followed by Imperialism.
(iii) Growth of scientific ideas.
(iv) Rise of Humanism.
(v) Growth of urban centres.

When one country establishes control upon the economy and society of another country which leads to social, political, economic and cultural changes, then this process is known as colonization.

(i) Literary sources prove to be most important in gaining knowledge about past events.
(ii) The Britishers laid the foundation of keeping records of each and every plan, policy, decision, instruction, agreement, and treaty, etc.
(iii) They started preserving important written documents such as letters, memos, etc.
(iv) Record rooms were established across all the important offices in rural as well as urban areas.
(v) Later, archives and museums were established to protect these records and documents so that they could be accessed in the future.