Set to inspire, this book includes some of the most stirring and eloquent addresses by Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Mother Teresa, JRD Tata, Abdul Kalam, Nardendra Modi and other influential Indian leaders.This impelling selection of expressive moments of oratory would provide the reader a fresh perspective; evoke feelings of patriotism, inspiration and unbounded motivation. Nitin Aggarwal introduces each speech with relevant information, providing valuable insight.

    The empire he inherited was weak from two messy dynastic succession, and ambitious enemy kings loomed large on all sides – a haughty king of Orissa in the east, five upstart Deccan Sultans to the North, revolting Tamil rajas in the South and enterprising Portuguese soldiers from the West. But Krishnadevaraya quickly rose to the challenge, and in the course of his remarkable twenty-year reign, he changed history forever. He won every single battle he fought and unified the whole of South India under his banner. Krishnadevaraya is remembered today as one of India’s greatest kings, not only because of his successes on the battlefield or the dazzling splendour of his empire, but because he was India’s first truly global leader. He had to confront very modern problems, such as building international alliances and negotiating overseas trade deals, while grappling with the challenges of globalism and multiculturalism. The Deccan of his time was a cosmopolitan place where Hindus and Muslims, North Indians and South Indians, Persians and Portuguese, all intermingled as they made their lives and fortunes. This cultural dynamism also inspired Krishnadevaraya to look back at India’s past and reflect on her histories and traditions. As a philosopher-king who was also a celebrated poet in his own right, he presided over an Indian Renaissance, when ancient texts and traditions were reinvigorated and infused with a fresh and modern vitality. Five hundred years after krishnadevaraya’s death, he is still remembered and loved as a compassionate and wise king, one who is immortalised in films and folk tales, poems and Ballads. This fascinating and riveting book is meticulously researched and beautifully written. Based on Portuguese and Persian chronicles, as well as many overlooked Telugu literary sources, Raya is the definitive biography of one of the world’s greatest leaders.

    Challenge and Strategy: Rethinking India's Foreign Policy examines India's foreign policy options in order to ensure that the country retains its space for manoeuvre, to follow an independent foreign policy in the 21st century global scenario.

    Hamilton Jr., and the veteran military history writer and bestselling author of One Shot One Kill,, Hill 488, and Crosshairs on the Kill Zone, Charles W. Sasser, detailing how Hamilton brought together a combination of Navy, Army, and CIA training methods to shape the United States’ unconventional military force, culminating in the Navy Seals, the world's most effective warriors in combating terrorists and international criminals, whose Team Six carried out the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

    But our story largely omits a whole civilization whose citizens shared an entirely different narrative for a thousand years.In Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as the Islamic world saw it, from the time of Mohammed to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and beyond. He clarifies why our civilizations grew up oblivious to each other, what happened when they intersected, and how the Islamic world was affected by its slow recognition that Europe-a place it long perceived as primitive and disorganized-had somehow hijacked destiny.

    

    Yet discussions of Asia seem fixated on economic indicators--gross national product, per capita income, share of global trade. Makers of Modern Asia reorients our understanding of contemporary Asia by highlighting the political leaders, not billionaire businessmen, who helped launch the Asian Century.The nationalists who crafted modern Asia were as much thinkers as activists, men and women who theorized and organized anticolonial movements, strategized and directed military campaigns, and designed and implemented political systems. The eleven thinker-politicians whose portraits are presented here were a mix of communists, capitalists, liberals, authoritarians, and proto-theocrats--a group as diverse as the countries they represent.From China, the world's most populous country, come four: Mao Zedong, leader of the Communist Revolution; Zhou Enlai, his close confidant; Deng Xiaoping, purged by Mao but rehabilitated to play a critical role in Chinese politics in later years; and Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang party formed the basis of modern Taiwan. From India, the world's largest democracy, come three: Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indira Gandhi, all of whom played crucial roles in guiding India toward independence and prosperity. Other exemplary nationalists include Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh, Indonesia's Sukarno, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, and Pakistan's Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. With contributions from leading scholars, Makers of Modern Asia illuminates the intellectual and ideological foundations of Asia's spectacular rise to global prominence.

    Out of that experience came Red Star Over China, a classic work that remains one of the most important books ever written about the birth of the Communist movement in China. This edition includes extensive notes on military and political developments in China, further interviews with Mao Tse-tung, a chronology covering 125 years of Chinese revolution, and nearly a hundred detailed biographies of the men and women who were instrumental in making China what it is today.

    Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste is one of the most important, yet neglected, works of political writing from India. Written in 1936, it is an audacious denunciation of Hinduism and its caste system. Ambedkar – a figure like W.E.B. Du Bois – offers a scholarly critique of Hindu scriptures, scriptures that sanction a rigidly hierarchical and iniquitous social system. The world’s best-known Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi, responded publicly to the provocation. The hatchet was never buried.

    The Darker Nations traces the intellectual origins and the political history of the twentieth century attempt to knit together the world’s impoverished countries in opposition to the United States and Soviet spheres of influence in the decades following World War II.Spanning every continent of the global South, Vijay Prashad’s fascinating narrative takes us from the birth of postcolonial nations after World War II to the downfall and corruption of nationalist regimes. A breakthrough book of cutting-edge scholarship, it includes vivid portraits of Third World giants like India’s Nehru, Egypt’s Nasser, and Indonesia’s Sukarno—as well as scores of extraordinary but now–forgotten intellectuals, artists, and freedom fighters. The Darker Nations restores to memory the vibrant though flawed idea of the Third World, whose demise, Prashad ultimately argues, has produced a much impoverished international political arena.

    

    Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant, charismatic head of the Manhattan Project, recruited scientists to live as virtual prisoners of the U.S. government at Los Alamos, a barren mesa thirty-five miles outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. Thousands of men, women, and children spent the war years sequestered in this top-secret military facility. They lied to friends and family about where they were going and what they were doing, and then disappeared into the desert. Through the eyes of a young Santa Fe widow who was one of Oppenheimer's first recruits, we see how, for all his flaws, he developed into an inspiring leader and motivated all those involved in the Los Alamos project to make a supreme effort and achieve the unthinkable.

    His stylized dialogues and screen mannerisms are legion, and his guy-next-door-cum-superhero image has found a hysterically appreciative following among millions of moviegoers. Naman Ramachandran's marvellous biography recounts Rajini's career in meticulous detail, tracing his incredible cinematic journey from his very first film, Apoorva Raagangal, in 1975 to memorable forays into Bollywood like Andha Kanoon and Hum, from landmark films like Billa, Thalapathi and Annamalai to the mega successes of Baashha, Muthu, Padayappa, Chandramukhi, Sivaji and Enthiran. Along the way, the book provides rare insights into the Thalaivar's personal life, from his childhood days to his times of struggle-when he was still Shivaji Rao Gaekwad-and then his eventual stardom: revealing how a legend was born. Rajinikanth has not written his memoirs; this book is the closest we are likely to get to the definitive Rajini story.

    This book explores examples of this process of invention - the creation of Welsh and Scottish 'national culture'; the elaboration of British royal rituals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the origins of imperial ritual in British India and Africa; and the attempts by radical movements to develop counter-traditions of their own. This book addresses the complex interaction of past and present, bringing together historicans and anthropologists in a fascinating study of ritual and symbolism which possess new questions for the understanding of our history.

    Here Shashi Tharoor, one of the subcontinent's most respected writers and diplomats, offers precious insights into this complex, multifaceted land, which despite its dazzling diversity of languages, customs, and cultures remains more than 60 years after its founding the world's largest democracy. He describes the vast changes that have transformed this once sleeping giant into a world leader in science and technology, a nation once poverty-stricken that now boasts a middle class of over 300 million people, as large as the entire population of the United States! Artfully combining hard facts and statistics with opinion and observation, Tharoor discusses the strengths and weaknesses of his rapidly evolving homeland in five areas: politics, economics, culture, society, and sports and takes a fresh look at the world's second most populous country.