It is always interesting to meet a traveller returned from a remote and exotic land; it is especially so when he is a well-informed historian. But when that historian happens to be one of the most brilliant of his profession
The increasing interest of historians in re-defining the nature and aspects of early British commercial interaction with the Indian sub-continent has found expression in a number of important publications. Among these the works of Holden Furber
A part of the Indian century series, edited by Ramachandra Guha and Sunil Khilnani, this book by Raghavan throws fresh light on
the travails the Indian state went through immediately after partition. A number of myths and legends have sprung up about the Nehru era, as a result of deductions made from what first hand literature was readily available at the time…
With its weird red earth and its alien flora and fauna—the eucalyptus trees and kangaroos—Australia was the eighteenth-century equivalent of Mars. (Ferguson 2004).Australia—the world’s largest island and smallest continent is often distin-guished from the rest of the world by its history—‘a colony populated by people whom Britain had thrown out (but which] proved…
In an age where big novels dazzle with their grand historical sweep and verbal gymnastics, Aruna Chakravarti’s Secret Spaces, a remarkable collection of short stories, delights with its delicacy and understatement. Having established her skill as an acclaimed translator and a writer of long fiction, Charkravarti surprises…
Monkey-man is K.R. Usha’s third novel and the first to explicitly place itself in a named city. It is hard to imagine a novel without a city; at least a geographical location, however nebulous. But there are two ways in which cities enter a novel. The writer can fix upon the city first then etch the lives of its inhabitants…