By Krishna Mohan Shrimali

The fourth section entitled ‘Social History: Reflections on Conceptual Issues’ contains five essays reflecting mainly upon several historiographical approaches. In the chapter on ‘Social Structure and Commercial Pursuits in Early India’, the author focuses on the terminological parameters of commercial pursuits. Leaving aside the common terms, the author questions the meaning of vārtā in the changing contexts of society. He further questions how in ancient Indian terminological parameters


Reviewed by: Dipsikha Acharya
By Perry Garfinkel

Simplicity offers opportunity to cleanse Perry’s apartment of possessions he did not really need (not going as far as to replace all his clothes with a dhoti or lungi, concluding sadly that he was not built for them) and to acquiring two new talents—spinning and playing the tabla.


Reviewed by: Ramu Damodaran
Edited by Monica Juneja and Sumathi Ramaswamy

Each scholar takes a different track: the art historian Zitzewitz looks at the theatrical performances that are imaged in the artist’s photo-performances, tracing a historical lineage to popular performances and even the artist’s own childhood participation in dramatic enactments of historical and mythological stories. Zitzewitz further argues for the interpretation of performance as an inhabiting of gender. Whether exploring the gendered iconography of nation or cinematic tropes


Reviewed by: Rashmi Viswanathan
By Aishika Chakraborty

This richly researched and evocatively articulated narrative, however, might leave a historian hankering for more in terms of a radical re-engagement with some of the existing frameworks. While the author begins with critiquing existing historiography on reducing the life of the Widow Reform Movement to its architect, Vidyasagar, the choice of opening the book with a chapter dedicated to the man does make the reader question the extent to which the book falls into the same trap.


Reviewed by: Surbhi Vatsa
By Manish Gaekwad

It is here, in the kotha, that Rekha Devi begins to piece together the shreds of her life and secure it from one day to the next, discovering herself in the process—learning music although she ‘sang like Neelkamal’, her goat, and wondered how she could ever sing, when she hardly ever spoke (p. 20). Her body, however, responded instantly to music (p. 22). She wished the ustad who tried to teach her music would use a spittoon and ‘not open his fountain mouth which sprinkled red spittle all over


Reviewed by: Kalpana Kannabiran
Edited by Michael D. Bordo, John H. Cochrane, and John B. Taylor

The second section of the book deals with the challenges of financial regulation and its relationship with monetary policy. The discussion revolves around the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) which failed in early 2023. The SVB was a successful new age financial institution, with a clientele drawn from the technology and startup sectors. Established in 1983


Reviewed by: TCA Anant