Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Absolute unity will also mean a self-cancellation of love for it needs an other for it to live (p. 248)
Developing an idea of self-division for self-expansion in the writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Pradip Kumar Datta sums up in this tantalizing and aphoristic formulation, the central problematic of identity.

If it takes breadth of imagination and a grasp of geography to grapple with the enormity of the scale and consequences of the British Empire, the authors of The British Empire and the Natural World do it for their readers in one extended 91-word sentence.

Anis Kidwai belonged to the illustrious Kidwai family of Barabanki family that has made more than a signal contribution to the making of India, not only in politics and governance but in diverse fields of creative endeavour.

It is always interesting to read a real story, the real story—and this is one that is about the Mutiny/ the First War of Independence/ the Great Uprising of 1857. But what earns the right to be called the real story, the truth? The answer now is that the truth is what is perceived by ordinary people, what they experience and record for us.

Mushirul Hasan is one of the most prolific historians specializing in the study of ‘modern Indian history’. His corpus of work is vast and consists of several monographs.

The study of an ideologized and activist organiation like the Majlis-i-Ahrar-i-Islam(MAI) is actually a journey through several inter-related domains including political Islam, South Asian Muslim identity politics,

Nancy Gardner Cassels’s book as the title suggests is a scholarly account of a range of East India Company legislation across various fields, from Sati to Emigrant labour, and from Meriah Sacrifice to the Pilgrim tax.

This volume of Nehru’s selected works, edited by Aditya and Mridula Mukherjee covers the period of three months from April to June 1958. Like earlier volumes, it gives us a flavour of the times.