Johannes Krause and Thomas Trappe Translated from the original German by Caroline Waight

Abiochemist and a health journalist come together to write about what happens when biology and history come together—the field of archaeogenetics opens up and lets the human story unfold in exciting new ways. In fact, the authors state that genetics must become an essential element of historical writing…


Reviewed by: Manu Mehrotra & Ambika Mohan
Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson has a penchant for writing sweeping histories. Over the years, Ferguson has managed to cast his spell over a wide audience through what can broadly be called as ‘popular history’. From empires and money to global leadership, Ferguson has enchanted his audience by introducing them to newer albeit obscure topics…


Reviewed by: Surajkumar Thube
Sanjaya Baru

The author of this edited volume, Sanjaya Baru correctly highlights uncertainty as the key problem caused by COVID-19. But the eminent economists who have contributed to this volume have largely ignored it. Most of them have analysed the situation as it existed sometime in the later part of 2020…


Reviewed by: Arun Kumar
Ranabir Samaddar

Despite the post-positivist and postmodern epistemic shifts that have blurred the boundary between traditional notions of objectivity and subjectivity, it wouldn’t be erroneous to proclaim that the most plausible historical evaluations have emerged in retrospect. The temporality of our subjectivity plays…


Reviewed by: Satyendra Singh
Himanshu Jha

Adetailed and well laid/mapped trajectory of the passage of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, in India, this book can be read in three parts through clustering the five detailed chapters apart from the introduction and the conclusion: the role of ideas and multi-layered process of institutional change…


Reviewed by: Shubhra Seth
Debal K. SinghaRoy

The book by Debal K SinghaRoy provides an exquisite illustration of the situational reconstruction of new, fluid and layered identities in collective mobilizations, along the axis of caste, class, tribe, nationality, ethnicity, citizenship and social movements, resulting from the unprecedented social transformation caused by the spread…


Reviewed by: Sristi Mondal