Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Every once in a while human life expresses itself in ways that funda-mentally transforms prevalent images of what it means to be human in any given society. The vulnerability to and dependence of young children on adults often leaves them incapable of avoiding or resisting exploitation, abuse and even death.

This omnibus edition brought out by Oxford University Press is a timely compilation of important landmarks in the child labour and education debate in India.

The world has never before been as rich as it is today. Yet substantial populations of the world are bereft of resources to ensure a modicum of health. Nearly 1.3 billion people, overwhelmingly in the formerly colonized countries of the South,

What are the factors that make some countries grow faster than others? Economists have forever been perplexed by this question and have sought answers by looking for empirical regularities in cross-country growth experiences.

Northern Pakistan, comprising its Northern Areas and Chitral (NAC) is one of the most rugged and mountainous regions of Central Asia. This region is located among four of the highest mountain ranges in the world, including the Himalayas, Karakorum, Pamir and Hidukush ranges.

The title captures the scope of the book. Placed in the context of claims and counter-claims about the ability of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) to reconfigure gendering relations in favour of women, the book brings in empirical and theoretical material to this debate.

Debates resonating in the last century on the dire impact of maldevelopment on the poor and on women in the Third World have spilled over into this century with consequences that cannot be measured by the word tragic.

Reading a collection of essays written as discrete pieces over a long period of time is a curious exercise in freedom. I’d imagine it would enable the author to break free of ‘writing time’—from the chronology of her own labour process- and engage with her own work as a dialogue of ideas that may not have surfaced all at once.

Selvy Thriuchandran’s book is essentially a description and analysis of two types of verses from the oral tradition that used to be commonly sung by women in Sri Lankan Tamil society over time even though the popularity of these have diminished in more recent times. The types of verses Thiruchandran has focused on are tallattu and oppari, which are described by her as lullabies and lament songs respectively.

One of the many treats of this book, an anthology of nineteen autobiographical essays on motherhood, is a marvellous evocation of food by some of the contributors. C.S. Lakshmi heads the list, with sections such as ‘Songs on the Terrace and Cakes with Green and Pink Icing’ and ‘Food as Communication, Food as Adventure’.

This is an important book that captures in detail and great finesse through a study of ‘contentious marriages’ the ongoing processes of social change in northern Indian society. By focusing on the central institution of marriage it weaves together the inter-relationship between caste, class and gender and its impact on women in Haryanvi society.

The author begins the text by attempting to dispel a few myths. Matrilineal Communities, Patriarchal Realities deals with the past, the present and concludes with suggestions for a better future.

According to The World Migration Report almost 50% of all migrants are women. This process termed as ‘the feminisation of migration’ has been rightly become the focus of many researches.

The writing of ‘women’s history’ has been closely related to the women’s movement and feminist practice. Since the 1960s, feminist scholars have challenged the methodology of conventional historiography and have altered its contours and research tools, perhaps with greater success than in the case of any other discipline.

The collection of essays entitled Culture Power and Agency, Gender in Indian Ethnography with an incisive introduction by the editors will be an asset to any library or personal collection. The authors contributing to the volume have carefully presented sound theories that are supported by their elaborate fieldwork.

Readings in Feminist Rhetorical Theory—this straightforward title holds out the promise of an anthology that brings together the work of various feminist rhetoricians within its covers. However, the circle of nine names that follows this title on the cover page belies this promise.

Roshen Dalal’s Dictionary is an affordable, well-produced and handy reference-work that is bound to go down well with scholars and general readers alike though judging by the author’s prefatory remarks, it primarily seeks to address the latter.

Carlo Ginzburg, the Italian historian, notes sarcastically in his fasci nating book The Judge and the Historian: ‘For many historians, the notion of proof is out of fashion: like that of truth, to which it is bound with a very solid historical (and therefore unnecessary) link.

Recently, I was told of the experience of the Managing Trustee of Navjivan Prakashan which holds the copyright to the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. In connection with a copyright case, the trustee had to present himself at the Tamil Nadu High Court along with the originals of some correspondence that Gandhi had with one of his associates in South Africa.

Once you have lived with mountains, Under the benedictory pines And deodars, near stars And a brighter moon, With wood smoke and mist, Sweet smell of grass, dew lines On spider-spun, sun-kissed Buttercup and vine;