Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Perhaps no period or region in Indian history is as well documented as the Mughal period. The practice of Mughal rulers of maintaining personal records and autobiographies, the encouragement given to contemporary historians to write official biographies and histories,

The central theme of this study is memory. Other important ones include teleology, spectrality, Derridean deconstruction, certain aspects of Marxism, ideas of the messianic plus philosophies of alterity.

One of the few authentic terrors of walking unguardedly into a bookshop in these dark times is that one is almost immediately trapped by an enormous phalanx of thoroughly amiable Spiritual Books on the Inner Self which profess to alleviate all one’s worldly ills, in twelve steps or less, through a sort of spiritual enema:

‘Sir, sir,’ said an excited M. Phil student to me recently, ‘did you see that Naipaul has said he killed his first wife?!’ That was, of course, how the newspapers had headlined the report that an authorized biography of Naipaul had come out, while omitting to say, naturally,

This short monograph, tract really, is the tenth in the Signpost series published by LeftWord Books. They have been of a uniformly high standard, while adopting an unqualified Left-liberal perspective.

This book has caused much controversy in the US because it deals with a theme that is sensitive. It is considered ‘politically incorrect’ to talk about the Israel Lobby and its influence on US foreign policy. But in a living democracy it should be possible, and often, it is unavoidable, to talk about what is considered ‘politically incorrect’.

This fascinating book depicts the agonizing life of millions of innocent coastal fisher-folk in South Asia who have become indirect victims of nationalism and interstate rivalry in the region.

This book assesses the condition of inter- and intra-state affairs of India and its neighbours in the post-Cold War period. This analysis is vested in the post- 1990s period because during that decade South Asia was overcome by ‘liberal internationalism’ that left the region largely peaceful.

Sri Lanka, emerald isle and home to diversities has hurtled into an abyss of civil war again. The delicate ceasefire agreement brokered tenuously by the Norwegians is over. For some it was barely in place.

The abandoned former campuses of Yangon and Mandalay universities, at one time leading institutions of higher learning in Asia and which produced distinguished Myanmarese from all walks of life, typically symbolize the state of things in Myanmar today.