This book is a biography of Bangabandhu Shiekh Mujibur Rahman, his early life as a politician and the events post Partition that shaped his outlook and approach to politics. Written by Badrul Ahsan, current Executive Editor of the Daily Star newspaper this book depicts the life of Mujib and his brutal assassination that closed an important chapter of Bangladesh’s political history.
The 18th National Congress of the Com- munist Party of China (CPC), which took place on 8 to 14 November 2012, drew the attention of China scholars and foreign governments for multiple reasons. During the 18th Congress, CPC’s model of peaceful leadership transition was under test as the very first generation of leaders who came to power positions through a predetermined regulated script was set to retire after handing over the torch to the new leadership.
The later 2012 and early 2013 marked a major milestone in China when high level leadership changes took place in both the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese Government. The changes have enormous implications for China’s internal developments as well as foreign policy and regional security.
Scholars studying India’s tradition of stra- tegic planning have generally focused on Kautilya’s Arthasastra (3rd century BCE) as the root text. However, another stream of research has debated whether India possesses a strategic culture at all. This perspective was propagated by George Tanham, an American defence analyst, who argues that India has always suffered, and continues to suffer, from a lack of a tradition of strategic thinking.
The last century continuing into the present one has seen the bloodiest and most destructive violence in recorded history carried into homes, habitats and whole communities, almost the wiping out of civilizations like the Mesopatamian in Iraq as chronicled in William Engdahl’s Century of War: Imperial Wars for Resources and Markets under the aegis of the Colonization and Recolonization Project.
The book under review is an import- ant contribution to political research in India for two reasons. The first is about the structuring of the discipline of political science in Indian universities. To a large extent, the discipline of political science in India is what Yogendra Yadav mentions in his foreword to the book, ‘methodologically illiterate’ and as a result has not been able to develop a robust body of evidence based research.