Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?


Martin Luther King Jr. - 1966
    Martin Luther King, Jr., isolated himself from the demands of the civil rights movement, rented a house in Jamaica with no telephone, and labored over his final manuscript. In this prophetic work, which has been unavailable for more than ten years, he lays out his thoughts, plans, and dreams for America's future, including the need for better jobs, higher wages, decent housing, and quality education. With a universal message of hope that continues to resonate, King demanded an end to global suffering, asserting that humankind-for the first time-has the resources and technology to eradicate poverty.

Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States


James C. Scott - 2017
    But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative. The first agrarian states, says James C. Scott, were born of accumulations of domestications: first fire, then plants, livestock, subjects of the state, captives, and finally women in the patriarchal family—all of which can be viewed as a way of gaining control over reproduction.   Scott explores why we avoided sedentism and plow agriculture, the advantages of mobile subsistence, the unforeseeable disease epidemics arising from crowding plants, animals, and grain, and why all early states are based on millets and cereal grains and unfree labor. He also discusses the “barbarians” who long evaded state control, as a way of understanding continuing tension between states and nonsubject peoples.

Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle


Mark Tully - 1985
    The book captures rise of Bhindranwale whose extremism played wedge between Sikh and Hindu, Sikh and Sikh and Punjab and India, the indecisiveness of Indira Gandhi who paid for the catastrophic aftermath with her life. Tully and Jacob bring tragedy of Sikh from many arresting angles. They met Bhindranwale and many other central characters in the drama. They gathered eye witness account from every quarter to fill in this remarkable picture of what occurred and present their thought provoking analysis of what happened.

On Palestine


Noam Chomsky - 2015
    The need to stand in solidarity with Palestinians has never been greater. Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky, two leading voices in the struggle to liberate Palestine, discuss the road ahead for Palestinians and how the international community can pressure Israel to end its human rights abuses against the people of Palestine. On Palestine is the sequel to their acclaimed book Gaza in Crisis.

The Indian Struggle 1920-1942


Subhas Chandra Bose - 1998
    This volume narrates the political upheavals of the inter-war period, further enriched by Netaji's reflections on the key themes of Indian history and a finely etched assessment of Mahatma Gandhi's role in itNetaji : Collected Works, Vol 2

A Brief History of the Great Moghuls


Bamber Gascoigne - 1971
    The book deals with one of the most interesting periods of Indian history, the 16th and 17th centuries, providing a picture of the country's most flamboyant rulers, their sublime palaces, their passions, art, science and religion, and their system of administration.

India


Stanley Wolpert - 1964
    More a continent than a single nation, India is home to over one-fifth of humanity, yet it remains a mystery to most non-Indians, barely appreciated and poorly understood. Stanley Wolpert's third edition of India provides a much-needed, concise overview of Indian history and culture. His new preface brings the book up to date, discussing the most recent national elections, the economic effects of the new globalization, and the consequences of joining the nuclear arms race.

Banaras: City of Light


Diana L. Eck - 1982
    This is the acclaimed study and interpretation of Banaras, the holy place of the Hindus.

Sixteen Stormy Days: The Story of the First Amendment of the Constitution of India


Tripurdaman Singh - 2020
    Passed in June 1951 in the face of tremendous opposition within and outside Parliament, the subject of some of independent India's fiercest parliamentary debates, the First Amendment drastically curbed freedom of speech; enabled caste-based reservation by restricting freedom against discrimination; circumscribed the right to property and validated abolition of the zamindari system; and fashioned a special schedule of unconstitutional laws immune to judicial challenge.Enacted months before India's inaugural election, the amendment represents the most profound changes that the Constitution has ever seen. Faced with an expansively liberal Constitution that stood in the way of nearly every major socio-economic plan in the Congress party's manifesto, a judiciary vigorously upholding civil liberties, and a press fiercely resisting his attempt to control public discourse, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru reasserted executive supremacy, creating the constitutional architecture for repression and coercion.What extraordinary set of events led the prime minister—who had championed the Constitution when it was passed in 1950 after three years of deliberation—to radically amend it after a mere sixteen days of debate in 1951?Drawing on parliamentary debates, press reports, judicial pronouncements, official correspondence and existing scholarship, Sixteen Stormy Days challenges conventional wisdom on iconic figures such as Jawaharlal Nehru, B.R. Ambedkar, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel and Shyama Prasad Mookerji, and lays bare the vast gulf between the liberal promise of India's Constitution and the authoritarian impulses of her first government.

The Last Nizam: An Indian Prince In The Australian Outback


John Zubrzycki - 2006
    "The Last Nizam" is the story of an extraordinary dynasty, the Nizams of Hyderabad, and how the heir to India's richest princely state gave up a kingdom and retired to the dusty paddocks of outback Australia. With vivid detail and anecdote John Zubrzycki charts the rise of the Nizams to fabulous wealth and prominence under the Mughal emperors of India, giving a rich and vibrant portrait of a realm soaked in blood and intrigue. Above all he describes the strange - sometimes comic, sometimes tragic - life of Mukarram Jah, His Exalted Highness, the Rustam of the Age, the Aristotle of the Times, Wal Mamaluk, Asaf Jah VIII, the Conqueror of Dominions, the Regulator of the Realm, Nawab Mir Barakat Ali Khan Bahadur, The Victor in Battles, the Leader of Armies, the last Nizam, the man who left behind the diamonds of Golconda and the palaces of Hyderabad to drive bulldozers in the Australian bush. A delicate and detailed work, "The Last Nizam" adds a crucial chapter to the history of India, capturing the very scent of wine, women and wealth whose appetites kept the Nizams in news and scandal while simultaneously deepening their legend.

The Sarasvati Civilization


G.D. Bakshi - 2019
    60–80 % of the so-called Indus Valley Civilisation sites which have been discovered are not on the banks of the Indus but on the course of the Sarasvati. The drying-out of the river is the most significant factor in the history and migrations of the ancient Indians. With new evidence, the time has come for a significant paradigm shift in Indology. This book breaks new ground to lay the foundation for an authentic Indian history.

Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day


Daryl Collins - 2009
    If you've never had to survive on an income so small, it is hard to imagine. How would you put food on the table, afford a home, and educate your children? How would you handle emergencies and old age? Every day, more than a billion people around the world must answer these questions. Portfolios of the Poor is the first book to systematically explain how the poor find solutions to their everyday financial problems.The authors conducted year-long interviews with impoverished villagers and slum dwellers in Bangladesh, India, and South Africa--records that track penny by penny how specific households manage their money. The stories of these families are often surprising and inspiring. Most poor households do not live hand to mouth, spending what they earn in a desperate bid to keep afloat. Instead, they employ financial tools, many linked to informal networks and family ties. They push money into savings for reserves, squeeze money out of creditors whenever possible, run sophisticated savings clubs, and use microfinancing wherever available. Their experiences reveal new methods to fight poverty and ways to envision the next generation of banks for the "bottom billion."Indispensable for those in development studies, economics, and microfinance, Portfolios of the Poor will appeal to anyone interested in knowing more about poverty and what can be done about it.

Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault


Stephen R.C. Hicks - 2004
    Why do skeptical and relativistic arguments have such power in the contemporary intellectual world? Why do they have that power in the humanities but not in the sciences? Why has a significant portion of the political Left - the same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, equality for all, and optimism - now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism? Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy.

This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto


Suketu Mehta - 2019
    The West, he argues, is being destroyed not by immigrants but by the fear of immigrants. He juxtaposes the phony narratives of populist ideologues with the ordinary heroism of labourers, nannies and others, from Dubai to New York, and explains why more people are on the move today than ever before. As civil strife and climate change reshape large parts of the planet, it is little surprise that borders have become so porous.This Land is Our Land also stresses the destructive legacies of colonialism and global inequality on large swathes of the world. When today’s immigrants are asked, ‘Why are you here?’, they can justly respond, ‘We are here because you were there.’ And now that they are here, as Mehta demonstrates, immigrants bring great benefits, enabling countries and communities to flourish.Impassioned, rigorous, and richly stocked with memorable stories and characters, This Land Is Our Land is a timely and necessary intervention, and literary polemic of the highest order.

The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations


Christopher Lasch - 1978
    Lasch’s identification of narcissism as not only an individual ailment but also a burgeoning social epidemic was groundbreaking. His diagnosis of American culture is even more relevant today, predicting the limitless expansion of the anxious and grasping narcissistic self into every part of American life.The Culture of Narcissism offers an astute and urgent analysis of what we need to know in these troubled times.