Jabin T. Jacob

The rise of China, its rapid economic transformation and military modernization, coupled with an aggressive and assertive position in its neighbourhood especially in the South China Sea in recent years, have caused a major concern in the region and beyond. After the 18th National CPC Congress, China under President Xi Jinping is seen to be strategically adjusting its policies towards its neighbours which in turn are engaged in working out their own relationship with China.


Reviewed by: Sudhir T Devare
Neeraj Kaushal

Immigration has been a sensitive issue in national politics in the western hemisphere for the last 25 years. Its ascent as an issue to be discussed, debated and voted upon has been an outcome of the process of globalization. However, within the last ten years, particularly after the failed Arab Spring of 2011, it has become a hot topic in Europe as well as in the United States.


Reviewed by: Avinash Godbole
Louise Tillin

The Constituent Assembly of India, after two years, eleven months and eighteen days of intense debates, came up with the final draft of the Constitution which proclaimed India as a sovereign democratic republic. While the terms ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ were later added to the Preamble (which is non-Justiciable by law) by the 42nd Amendment, the word ‘federal’ was eschewed.


Reviewed by: Chanchal Kumar Sharma
Sunil Amrith

The path to the creation of civilization has presented humans with a variety of challenges. None has been more enduring than nature itself. A battle with the elements has featured through the history of the evolution of human beings. The idea of the conquest of nature, though not entirely novel, has been pushed forward rapaciously in more recent times.


Reviewed by: Sucharita Sengupta
Rakhshanda Jalil/George Morton-Jack/Uma Prasad Thapliyal

The publishing season of War continues! The two world wars of the 20th century have produced a prodigious amount of academic and non-academic literature in the 21st century because this literature commands a good market. After all, curiosity regarding these cataclysms remains seventy-five years after the Second World War ended in 1945. During 2014-2018, the hundredth anniversary of the First World War was ‘commemorated’ across the world.


Reviewed by: Anirudh Deshpande
Martin Fuchs

It is a pleasure to read a book of scholarly essays such as the one under review, where a diverse set of authors have contributed essays that are both informative and insightful. These essays are the outcome of a conference held in 2010 on negotiating religious identities in colonial India. The thread that holds these essays together is the creation of a new identity for each of the religious groups that are discussed here.


Reviewed by: M Rajivlochan