Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

This is a compendium volume bringing together two earlier monumental works by Angus Maddison. The first, titled ‘The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective’, was issued in 2001. The second, a companion volume titled ‘The World Economy: Historical Statistics’, was issued in 2003. Both were commissioned by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

One of the key concerns of a monogram on an individual artist is to draw attention to a body of significant work that might find just passing mention in sweeping art historical overviews. Often,

The central thesis of V.S. Parmar’s book is an important one. In the footsteps of subaltern historians he attempts to shift the focus of architectural history of India away from monumental architecture—palaces, temples,

In October 1980, a relatively unknown company from the San Francisco Bay area called Genentech created history on the New York Stock Exchange by raising US$ 35 million in its IPO. Though the figure itself is puny compared to those bandied about during the dotcom bubble,

This is a much welcome translation of Mártires Lopes original work in Portuguese, first published in 1993, with a second edition (also in Portuguese) in 1999. As the author herself states in the preface to her first edition, this is one of the few times that material from the Pastoral Visits and Church Rolls in Goa has been used.

Subaltern historiography is a comparatively recent discipline in India. With mainstream history appropriating the centre stage for long, the extended historical course traversed by the many subaltern and minority groups in the country on their way to becoming conscious of a distinct identity, remained unexplored until very recently.

The contest over the political identity of Tibet has led to a protracted conflict between Tibet and China and India and China. The Sino-Indian border issue is intrinsically linked with the question of Tibet’s political identity. In India, scholarship on this issue has tended to focus more on the Sino-Indian dimension of the Tibet issue.

An endeavour to reconstruct a religious biography can be formidable. In fact, such a venture which resurrects the lives of those who exemplify the religious spirit of an age can evoke the tendency to fabricate traits, in order to eulogize their portrayals as ideals and icons,

Though now appearing somewhat dated, this is indeed an useful collection of essays that seeks to historicize the dynamic and complex changes occurring among the ‘Hindus’ and to ‘Hinduism’. Barring one, the essays put together for this volume are reprinted from two older anthologies, viz. Representing Hinduism (1995) and Charisma and Canon (2001).

In contemporary Indian literature, modern sensibility could only assert itself through a strong denunciation of what has been considered traditional, of what has been regarded as sacred. Without the strong note of iconoclasm, a writer could not claim to be modern in any meaningful sense.

Like Scent of Wet Earth in August, Feryal Ali Gauhar’s second novel, No Space for Further Burials, began as an idea for a film. It was to be based on the aftermath of the 1989 Soviet pullout from Afghanistan and the three-year war between the Serbians and Bosnians that began in 1992.

By the early nineteenth century the Urdu language had perfected and polished itself to such a sheen that it shone like burnished gold. It had honed its vocabulary to express the noblest emotions and refined its syntax to convey the most complicated expressions with ease and finesse. As a language, it had come of age.

Leela Gandhi’s Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought and the Politics of Friendship is a quintessentially Gandhian essay, and not simply because she is a Gandhi. It is Gandhian in its ethical surplus, in making a religion out of morality.

The core of Playing with Fire is formed by the English version of the Hindustani Sangtin Yatra (2004), a moving and powerful reflection by seven women, village-level workers and activists, on their fraught lives and work in Sitapur district, in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh.

An important task for all those interested in tracking the trajectory of Women’s Studies in India would be to undertake a review of the many different discourses on women generated by feminist scholarship, women’s activism and the institutionalization of Women’s Studies.

This book is a part of the series on New Perspectives on Indian Pasts edited by Saurabh Dube. The theoretical premises that underline the need for such a series are as follows: (1) that formal academic histories and historical thought have tended to authenticate given structures of power and meaning; (2) that visions of the past are rooted in contemporary political interrogations and contestations,

Billy Arjan Singh is an icon in the annals of Indian wildlife conservation. His contribution to the creation of the Dudhwa National Park and subsequently to the establishment of a Tiger Reserve there has been immense. His commitment to the cause is unquestionable.

Tiger Tales, as is evident from the title, is a comprehensive anthology which brings together an eclectic set of writings on that most beautiful and mysterious of big cats, the tiger. Compiled by none other than Dr. Ullas Karanth, one of India’s most eminent wildlife biologists who has spent many years studying tigers in the forests of southern India,

Management education is perhaps the biggest growth segment in the education sector in India today. There are estimated to be around 1200 registered institutions imparting management education at the Master’s level, and even after adding on the backyard and garage schools, the numbers graduating, of whatever quality,

For those of us who have been saddened by the numerous instances of our farmers committing suicide, it is indeed heartening to see an IAS officer, of over 16 years service (Meeta) and her historian husband(Rajivlochan) undertake a serious study of the subject.