This is the first of four large volumes, chronologically arranged, that detail major aspects of the life and times of Allan Octavian Hume; he is better known to students of Indian history as the founder and general secretary of the Indian National Congress between 1885 and 1894.
As students of early Indian history know only too well, the Aryan question just refuses to go away. It remains the subject of conversation in middle-class homes, and, in the last decade or so, has been the theme of stormy academic (and not-so-academic) debates. It is in this context that this volume in the Oxford University Press Debates series is most welcome.
This book is aimed at the very heart of belief in the modern world: the ineluctable faith in economic growth. The idea of progress tied to inexhaustible desire and the unrelenting quest for want driven development have, in concert, become elements central to the globalizing economy. In the media generated imagination, a rising stock market, increasing exports,
James Gustave Speth is now Professor at the School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences at Yale, an institution founded a century ago by the legendary Bernhard Fernow. Having studied Law, Speth was one of the founders of the Natural Resources Defence Council. Equally useful in terms of his insights into governmental policymaking was his role as an advisor to Jimmy Carter,
This book is based on a PhD thesis recently awarded by the University of Berlin. The author lived in an Oriya village called Mundaloi for 18 months during 2000-02 to collect data for his thesis. Until I read this book I had a kind of belief that PhD theses do not make good books even if they are substantially revised.
Given the range it represents in terms of location, generation, community and caste, this volume of eighteen interviews seeking to explore issues related to gender and censorship often invites the reader to lose herself in individual accounts that open up unfamiliar areas of experience, of history and of political struggle.