The slight sarcasm added in the subtitle to Environmental History,as if nature existed, triggers questions for the reader of this volume. Why as if? Are we to be taken en route through a landscape of perceptions and constructions, or are we brought to see the raw realities behind benign conservation regimes?…
Since the inception of the discipline, there has been a close link between archaeology and the state. This was the case since the early decades of the nineteenth century when archaeology was both an imperial project and a military endeavour, often an offshoot of colonial policies and which included their relationships…
This book ventures into previously nexplored areas of South Asian history, indicating the exciting possibilities of research in social and economic history. Consumption in South Asia begins with the observation that The history of consumption is not an identifiable sub-field among South Asianists, nor are there any individual historians…
From the desert state of Arizona in the U.S., a researcher was drawn to the printed word emerging from this small region called Goa. Donna J. Young tells Frederick Noronha what made her look at the literature of this distant land, and why she found Goan writing (primarily in English, which she studied) to be interesting…
Zadie Smith in her collection, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays has a piece where she talks of the craft of writing.In ‘The Crafty Feeling’, Smith says that it is when the writer reaches a point called the ‘middle’ that the novel and the experience of writing it begin to totally consume her. She has to finish writing it…
Siddharth Dhanavant Shanghvi’s novel has all the ingredients of a classic potboiler: love, lust, power, violence, murder, suspense, scandals and courtroom drama.Yet it does not quite succeed, either as a gripping narrative or as an intense scrutiny of modern social trends.Inspired by the Jessica Lall murder case and liberally strewn with episodes that recall recent sensational news stories, the book nevertheless affirms its status as fiction…