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The present volume is the record of an experiment in interdisciplinary study and dis¬cussion conducted under the joint sponsorship of the ICSSR and the Madras Insti¬tute of Development Studies. The participants in three workshops consisted of social scientists drawn from different disciplines and from various universities and research insti¬tutions, mainly from southern India. The theme of poverty, a problem of great social con¬cern and relevance, was chosen for discussion because it lends itself to interdisciplinary inves¬tigation.

It is the forte of political theo¬rists to look life in the eye, as a Russian saying goes, with¬out flinching and as far as possible by keeping away from the coloured filters of those who argue in a different vein. In any political speculation there is always a lot of room for conjecture; but Papworth dabbles feverishly in all the concepts evolved since Plato’s celebrated city state, only to write them off as the brain children of dreamy idealists.

In this book Dilip Kumar Roy pays tribute to six ‘illu¬minates’ of modern India—Sri Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Mahatma Gandhi, Sant Gulab Singh and Mahayogi Anirvan. Some of these men he has written about in his earlier, more interesting book, Among the Great.

The volume under review is a collection of Schumacher’s writings and speeches, pains¬takingly compiled and edited by a colleague. Schumacher was deeply involved in two areas during his life: these were energy and management control of a large corporate body. The first four chapters of the book deal with the energy crisis and the last two with the question of public ownership and controls.

Hot Water Man is a story set in Karachi during Bhutto’s rule. But like most British writing on the subject of the jewel in the British crown, it is the story of a search for a lost kingdom—the Raj. And Bhutto figures only marginally, as does the real Pakistan. Where the authors of these works are not writing of the actual period, as Paul Scott did so successfully, they are trying to trace its remnants.

Portuguese imperialism sought to present itself as the embodiment of a divine Caesar and thereby to absolve itself from the obligation of render¬ing the spoils either unto God or unto Caesar. Rapine became thus an essential part of the crusade. The Portuguese could thus evolve a curious blend of lust for gold and souls. Its numismatic expres¬sion was the Cruzado.