In this dramatic account, Kim A. Wagner details the perspectives of ordinary people and argues that General Dyer’s order to open fire at Jallianwalla Bagh was an act of fear. Situating the massacre within the "deep" context of British colonial mentality and the local dynamics of Indian nationalism, Wagner provides a genuinely nuanced approach to the bloody history of the British Empire.

    I'm tired of Tinder, bored of Bumble - I've even been ejected by eHarmony, who, last time I logged on, told me it couldn't find me a single match."There used to be a well-known statistic that a woman is more likely to be killed by a terrorist than marry after the age of 40. But it is now thought that single women without children are some of the happiest people in the population.In this raw, hilarious and beguilingly honest memoir, Self-Contained explores what happens when you chose to exist not in a partnership, but as a self-partner instead. Emma shares what it's like to turn up at a child's birthday celebration alone and how it feels to be the 'uneven number' at the dinner party, but she celebrates the freedom of being accountable only to herself. Self-Contained captures life when you are a single figure, not a double digit. Perhaps it's time we asked ourselves if the happy ending we're all searching for is the moment we realize we complete ourselves.

    Today we focus less on the Roman Republic than on the empire that took its place. Depending on who's doing the talking, the history of Rome serves as either a triumphal call to action or a dire warming of imminent collapse.The esteemed editor and author Cullen Murphy ventures past the pundits' rhetoric to draw nuanced lessons about how America might avoid Rome's demise. Working on a canvas that extends far beyond the issue of an overstretched military, Murphy reveals a wide array of similarities between the two empires: the blinkered, insular culture of our capitals; the debilitating effect of venality in public life; the paradoxical issue of borders; and the weakening of the body politic though various forms of privatization. He persuasively argues that we most resemble Rome in the burgeoning corruption of our government and in our arrogant ignorance of the world outside -- two things that are in our power to change.In lively, richly detailed historical stories based on the latest scholarship, the ancient world leaps to life and casts our own contemporary world in a provocative new light.

    It will surpass China in population by 2032 and will have more English speakers than the United States by 2050. In In Spite of the Gods, Edward Luce, a journalist who covered India for many years, makes brilliant sense of India and its rise to global power. Already a number-one bestseller in India, his book is sure to be acknowledged for years as the definitive introduction to modern India. In Spite of the Gods illuminates a land of many contradictions. The booming tech sector we read so much about in the West, Luce points out, employs no more than one million of India’s 1.1 billion people. Only 35 million people, in fact, have formal enough jobs to pay taxes, while three-quarters of the country lives in extreme deprivation in India’s 600,000 villages. Yet amid all these extremes exists the world’s largest experiment in representative democracy—and a largely successful one, despite bureaucracies riddled with horrifying corruption. Luce shows that India is an economic rival to the U.S. in an entirely different sense than China is. There is nothing in India like the manufacturing capacity of China, despite the huge potential labor force. An inept system of public education leaves most Indians illiterate and unskilled. Yet at the other extreme, the middle class produces ten times as many engineering students a year as the United States. Notwithstanding its future as a major competitor in a globalized economy, American. leaders have been encouraging India’s rise, even welcoming it into the nuclear energy club, hoping to balance China’s influence in Asia. Above all, In Spite of the Gods is an enlightening study of the forces shaping India as it tries to balance the stubborn traditions of the past with an unevenly modernizing present. Deeply informed by scholarship and history, leavened by humor and rich in anecdote, it shows that India has huge opportunities as well as tremendous challenges that make the future “hers to lose.”

    K. Advani, an Indian politician who served as the Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004, and was the Leader of the Opposition in the 15th Lok Sabha. The book was released on 19 March 2008 by Abdul Kalam, the eleventh President of India. The book has 1,040 pages and narrates autobiographical accounts and events in the life of Advani. It became the best seller book in the non-fiction category and Advani joined Archer as a bestseller author. The book website claims the book sold an excess of 1,000,000 copies. The book alongside mentions the event in Indian politics and India's history from 1900 till date.

    Whether he's discussing courtship rituals or pop culture, drones or the rhythms of daily life in an extended family compound, he transports us beyond the alarmist headlines of an anxious West and a volatile East and helps to bring a dazzling diverse world within emotional and intellectual reach.

    This book should be required reading for the Left in the West who have mistakenly started believing that Islamists represent some sort of anti-imperialism.

    Johnson’s greatness to Bono’s gratingness, from doubts about Obama to utter belief in Don Cherry, from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s outstanding oeuvre to — well, Pamela Anderson.The topics are as eclectic and wide ranging as the intelligence that put them together. The perspective is thoroughly Canadian, and so are many of the recurring topics and themes: of our domestic politics and our military involvements abroad, of our national identity, of human rights and human decency. You’ll find assessments of the reputations of Paul Martin, Conrad Black, Adrienne Clarkson, and Tim Hortons; tough but affectionate views of Newfoundland — of course — but also from Rex Murphy’s constant travels across Canada.But all the world is here, in all its glory and folly. The hard-hitting attacks on politicians, celebrities, those who would ban smoking, and anyone who uses the expression “global warming denial” will have you cheering or tearing your hair out, depending. You will be informed, infuriated perhaps, but always fascinated.

    Certainly the focus is not General Musharraf or even the Army. It is a book about human experience of life; the story of a weak man stumbling through his life; pushed by his fears and dragged by his desires; torn apart by love, transcending with time. It is a book for the youth of this nation, to learn from the mistakes I have made, to see how life twists and moulds each one of us. In this endeavour I have laid my life bare, and exposed myself to all forms of criticism. I did not expect any less. And this is the least price I must pay for the suffering that some of my mistakes have caused to this nation."Autobiography of Lt. Gen. (retd) Shahid Aziz, a central character of the 1999 coup by Pakistan Army against the democratically elected government.

    One by one the militants crossed the border into Pakistan and settled in its tribal areas, building alliances with locals and terrorizing or bribing their way to power. This place - Pakistan's lawless frontier - is now the epicenter of global terrorism. It is where young American and British jihadists go to be trained, where the kidnapped are stowed away, and where plots are hatched for deadly attacks all over the world. It has become, in President Obama's words, "the most dangerous place" - a hornet's nest of violent extremists, many of whom now target their own state in vicious suicide- bombing campaigns. Imtiaz Gul, who knows the ins and outs of these groups and their leaders, tackles the toughest questions about the current situation: What can be done to bring the Pakistani Taliban under control? Who funds these militants and what are their links to Al Qaeda? Are they still supported by the ISI, Pakistan's all-powerful intelligence agency? Based on dozens of exclusive interviews with high-ranking Pakistani intelligence, government and military officers and extensive first-hand reporting, The Most Dangerous Place is a gripping and definitive exposé of a region that Americans need urgently to understand.

    In this fascinating and useful book, Perry Anderson interviews the noted scholar of Islam Suleiman Mourad about the Qurʾan and the history of the faith. Mourad elucidates the different stages in Islam's development: the Qurʾan as scripture and the history of its codification; Muhammad and the significance of his Sunna and Hadith; the Sunni-Shiʿi split and the formation of various sects; the development of jihad; the transition to modernity and the challenges of reform; and the complexities of Islam in the modern world. He also looks at Wahhabism from its inception in the eighteenth century to its present-day position as the movement that galvanized modern Salafism and gave rise to militant Islam or jihadism. The Mosaic of Islam reveals both the richness and the fissures of the faith. It speaks of the different voices claiming to represent the religion and spans peaceful groups and manifestations as well as the bloody confrontations that disfigure the Middle East, such as the Saudi intervention in the Yemen and the collapse of Syria and Iraq.

    Babur’s honest and intimate chronicle is the first autobiography in Islamic literature, written at a time when there was no historical precedent for a personal narrative—now in a sparkling new translation by Islamic scholar Wheeler Thackston.This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes notes, indices, maps, and illustrations.

    The U.S. territories—American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands—and their 4 million people are little known and often forgotten, so Doug Mack set out on a 30,000-mile journey to learn about them. How did they come to be part of the United States? What are they like today? And why aren’t they states? Deeply researched and richly reported, The Not-Quite States of America is an entertaining and unprecedented account of the territories’ crucial yet overlooked place in the American story.

    Yet these qualities have, paradoxically, prompted people to share intimate insights with him- perhaps because he is not a rival, a competitor, or a threat. Sometimes this made him the prey of con men like conspiratorialist Mark Lane or civil rights leader James Bevel. At other times it led to close friendship with such people as William F. Buckley, Jr., or singer Beverly Sills. The result is the most personal book Wills has ever written. With his dazzling style and journalist's eye for detail, Wills brings history to life, whether it's the civil rights movement; the protests against the Vietnam War; the presidential campaigns of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton; or the set of Oliver Stone's "Nixon." Illuminating and provocative, "Outside Looking In" is a compelling chronicle of an original thinker at work in remarkable times.

    Shirer was sent to India by the Chicago Tribune to cover the rise of the Independence Movement. During this time Shirer was privileged to observe Mahatma Gandhi as he launched the Civil Disobedience Campaign and to enjoy his personal friendship and confidence.In this fascinating memoir, Shirer writes perceptively and unforgettably about Gandhi's frailties as well as his accomplishments. Despite his greatness, Gandhi was the first to admit that he was a human being with his own prejudices and peculiarities: he could be stubborn and dictatorial, yet the magnificence of the man rose above all else."Gandhi: A Memoir" sheds a special light on the man who left such an indelible imprint on India and the world.