Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Books on Saudi Arabia have appeared in three distinct waves. The first wave sought to explore and understand the mysterious Saudi world. Harry St. John Philby represents the first wave.

A lot has been written and discussed about the linkage between religion and politics. The Iranian Revolution of the late 1970s in a way epitomized such a relationship. Omid Safi, who grew up in Iran during the revolutionary days and whose family later shifted to the United States, looks at the ideological and political aspects of Islam in the Saljuq era Iran of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

The Centre for West Asian Studies was set up in the Jamia Millia Islamia in 2005. The Director of the Centre, Rajendra M. Abhyankar, has pointed out in his ‘Introduction’ that the Centre’s area of study is much larger than West Asia, and includes the Horn of Africa, Central Asia, Iran and Turkey.

In Asian Voices in a Postcolonial Age, Susan Bayly presents a perspective on the two countries, Vietnam and India, with a focus on the former, as India primarily steps into her narrative from a comparative vantage point.

Air Marshal Asghar Khan (retd.) has written extensively about the political developments in Pakistan since its inception in 1947. He had the advantage of a ringside view of history and was himself a participant in many of those developments. He is liberal and broadminded in his outlook.

The 26/11 terrorists attack in Mumbai witnessed among other things, a deluge of voices criticizing the Indian media for its coverage of the terror attack. The media was particularly slammed for sensationalizing the news through live coverage of the attacks on the Taj and Oberoi Trident hotels and for creating, if not reflecting, a (public) mood, of warmongering and most importantly, for not questioning the Indian government’s theory of Pakistan’s involvement in the terror attack. In any given situation, the media is the main source of information and therefore, ‘objective journalism’ is demanded, or so it has been argued.

The book Bhutan, a rich pictorial depiction of Bhutan’s history and culture by Lekha Singh is an excellent presentation of the country’s identity. This richness is reflected vividly in the brilliant photographs.

Burma or what is now called Myanmar by its psychopathic military rulers, was living for many years in complete isolation away from world’s attention. Its now deceased architect of the regime, General Ne Win usurped power through a military coup in 1962 contrived a confused ideology of ‘Burmese Way to Socialism,’

There is a plethora of literature on Tibetan refugees both here in India as well as the world outside; in fact it may be hard to list countries that have escaped the Tibetan Diaspora.

Bangladesh and Pakistan:Flirting with Failure in South Asia is essentially a political (and military) history of the two countries since 1971. Yet there is, notably in the case of Pakistan, sufficient recounting of the past to make the present more comprehensible.

Indians of Nepali Origin (INO) could be described as the unrecognized dimension in India-Nepal relations. They are also a little-understood and under-estimated component of India’s pluralistic mosaic.

Reading any book on Sri Lanka at this critical juncture in Sri Lankan history is like preparing oneself for an account of history that is fast getting dated and passé.

Recovering and reconstructing women figures from the past constituted the earliest moves of feminist writing which preceded and then accompanied larger critiques of history on the ground that conventional modes of writing and narration were precisely that which rendered women, indeed gender itself, invisible.

The historical experience of temple desecration in pre-modern India—and, at a more general level, contested history revolving round Indo-Muslim rulers and states—has become a sensitive mass political issue in contemporary India.

Jamal Malik’s book Islam in South Asia: A Short History is anything but a short history of the religion as it evolved in the region. Running a good 500 plus pages this is one of the most dense and comprehensive histories on the subject.

This book tries to explore the condition of Indian Muslims through media images, i.e., through an assessment of the reportage on Indian Muslims by the print and electronic media.

The growing might and influence of the media in shaping the agenda and nature of public discourse compels greater attention to getting behind and beyond the news and analysing the content and trend of what is read, heard or viewed.

Seema Kazi’s book begins on a promising note as she examines the Kashmir conflict from a very different vantage point. Amidst the burgeoning literature on this subject,

Bharat Karnad’s book India’s Nuclear Policy seeks, to use in the words of the author, ‘to reveal the workings of India’s nuclear strategy and posture’. He has sought to translate the ‘credible nuclear deterrence’ policy of India into a militarily sustainable stance. India’s shift from a deliberately vague nuclear doctrine to an overt nuclear weapons posture and the consequent declaration of the nuclear doctrine has been a matter of debate amongst scholars belonging to the security studies/strategic studies community.

The United Nations designated Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary (October 2) as the International Day of Nonviolence. Unfortunately, not even a single day passes nowadays without an act of extremism in South Asia, as it has emerged as a home to a wide spectrum of extremist groups.