Dr. Mahadevan’s translation and selection is a most useful reference work and reading the excerpts from the Minor Upanisads is fascinating. He has given short explanations with certain passages from nearly all the 108 Upanisads but, though the front-cover blurb claims these are ‘easy-to-read translations’, it is difficult to agree…
Though not a particularly scholarly work, John Pemble’s book explores new arenas in the fashionable subject of the 1857 uprising. The first part of the book, entitled the ‘City’, is an eminently readable depiction of the Court life of Lucknow, with interesting observations on the emergence and themes of Urdu poetry that flourished in the Court of Oudh.
The Second World War is a great divide in the history of 20th century Britain. It marks the transition of Britain as a world power to a period of post-imperial identity crisis. The 30 years since the war were difficult years of adjustment. A major protagonist was reduced to the role of a participant in the Greek chorus of nations.
The voyage of the Komagata Maru has its roots in the present as well as in the past. It had its links with the Ghadr party, the most powerful terrorist organization outside India engaged in the anti-imperialist struggle. But its relevance is no less to the immediate question of the Indian immigrants everywhere and their prospects and problems.
Dr Baker deserves credit for remedying the neglect of the Central Provinces and Berar. It should be appreciated that it is not an easy task to write a monograph on political changes in a province where information about the social and economic history of the region is still rudimentary.
Thomas Metcalf’s scholarly work describes the process by which the taluqdars of Oudh were transformed from rulers of men into modern rentier landlords. He has a small chapter on the origin of the Rajput clans—how they were superimposed on the local cultivating community through conquest and inter-clan rivalry.