To Alexander the Great, the country was a place of clever naked philosophers and massive armies mounted on elephants – which eventually forced his army to retreat. To ancient Rome, it was a source of luxuries, mainly spices and textiles, paid for in gold—hence the enormous numbers of Roman gold coins excavated in India. At the height of the Mughal empire in 1700, India boasted 24 percent of the world economy—a share virtually equal to Europe’s 25 percent. But then its economy declined. Colonial India was known for its extremes of wealth and poverty, epitomized by the Taj Mahal and famines, maharajas and untouchables, and also for its spirituality: many-armed Hindu gods and Buddhist philosophy, Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.India: A Short History places as much emphasis on individuals, ideas and cultures as on the rise and fall of kingdoms, political parties and economies. Anyone curious about a great civilization, and its future, will find this an ideal introduction, at times controversial, written by an author who has been strongly engaged with India for more than three decades.

    The heartbreaking story of Kashmir has so far been told through the prism of the brutality of the Indian state, and the pro-independence demands of separatists. But there is another part of the story that has remained unrecorded and buried. Our Moon Has Blood Clots is the unspoken chapter in the story of Kashmir, in which it was purged of the Kashmiri Pandit community in a violent ethnic cleansing backed by Islamist militants. Hundreds of people were tortured and killed, and about 3,50,000 Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave their homes and spend the rest of their lives in exile in their own country. Rahul Pandita has written a deeply personal, powerful and unforgettable story of history, home and loss.

    They also have 330 million gods: male gods, female gods, personal gods, family gods, household gods, village gods, gods of space and time, gods for specific castes and particular professions, gods who reside in trees, in animals, in minerals, in geometrical patterns and in man-made objects. Then there are a whole host of demons. But no Devil. In this groundbreaking book Dr Devdutt Pattanaik, one of India’s most popular mythologists, seeks an answer to these apparent paradoxes and unravels an inherited truth about life and death, nature and culture, perfection and possibility. He retells sacred Hindu stories and decodes Hindu symbols and rituals, using a unique style of commentary, illustrations and diagrams. We discover why the villainous Kauravas went to heaven and the virtuous Pandavas (all except Yudhishtira) were sent to hell; why Rama despite abandoning the innocent Sita remains the model king; why the blood-drinking Kali is another form of the milk-giving Gauri and why Shiva wrenched off the fifth head of Brahma. Constructed over generations, Hindu myths serve as windows to the soul, and provide an understanding of the world around us. The aim is not to outgrow myth, but to be enriched and empowered by its ancient, potent and still relevant language

    A compendium of in-depth reports from all over the world, including Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, Japan, Pakistan, Israel, Africa Turkey and China.

    Most comprehensive histories devote a few chapters to the early history of India and an increasing number of pages to the more recent period, giving an impression that early history is mere background and that Indian civilization finds its fulfillment in the nation-state. Thomas R. Trautmann believes that the deep past lives on and is a valuable resource for understanding the present day and for creating a viable future. The result is a book that is short enough to read in a few sittings, but comprehensive in coverage--5,000 years of India in brief.

    In the dry language of development reports and economic projections, the true misery of the 312 million who live below the poverty line, or the 26 million displaced by various projects, or the 13 million who suffer from tuberculosis gets overlooked. In this thoroughly researched study of the poorest of the poor, we get to see how they manage, what sustains them, and the efforts, often ludicrous, to do something for them. The people who figure in this book typify the lives and aspirations of a large section of Indian society, and their stories present us with the true face of development.

    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.

    Veteran journalist and author of the bestseller Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay lays bare its fascinating, unique and perhaps startling world. He also chronicles the personal and political journeys of the most important men (and a woman) of the Hindu Right-wing, digging up little-known but revealing facts about them.KESHAV BALIRAM HEDGEWAR: The founder of the RSS, and its first sarsanghchalak, was called ‘Cocaine’ as a young revolutionary, and transported subversive literature and arms for a group back home in Nagpur.VINAYAK DAMODAR SAVARKAR: This leading light of the Hindu Right had once invited the vegetarian Mahatma Gandhi to dinner and told him that unless one consumed animal protein, one would not be able to challenge the might of the British.MADHAV SADASHIV GOLWALKAR aka ‘GURUJI’: The iconic ‘hermit-ideologue’, whose appointment as sarsanghchalak was challenged by many in the RSS, had once warned a protesting colleague, ‘I will throw him out of (the) RSS like a stone in rice...’SYAMA PRASAD MOOKERJEE: A brilliant academic-statesman who became part of Nehru’s Cabinet, Mookerjee had several differences with the prime minister. He once asked Nehru: ‘Are Kashmiris Indians first and Kashmiris next, or are they Kashmiris first and Indian next, or are they Kashmiris first, second and third, and not Indians at all?’BALASAHEB DEORAS: This towering pracharak had a strong dislike for religious rituals, and referred to himself as a ‘Communist’ within the RSS—‘it is highly debatable if he believed in God, or if in any way needed Him.’DEENDAYAL UPADHYAYA: The man who propounded the ‘philosophy’ of Integral Humanism was opposed to the partition of India and recommended that, ‘If we want unity, we must adopt the yardstick of Indian nationalism, which is Hindu nationalism, and Indian culture, which is Hindu culture.’These and other leaders, including Vijaya Raje Scindia, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Ashok Singhal and Bal Thackeray, are all reckoned with in The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right. Through individual stories of the organisation’s tallest leaders, a bigger picture emerges: in spite of a three-time ban on the RSS in a multicultural and secular India—and despite the RSS’s insistence that it has no truck with electoral politics—the group is, and will be, the hand that rocks the BJP’s cradle.

    David Shulman presents a comprehensive cultural history of Tamil language, literature, and civilization emphasizing how Tamil speakers and poets have understood the unique features of their language over its long history. Impetuous, musical, whimsical, in constant flux, Tamil is a living entity, and this is its biography.Two stories animate Shulman s narrative. The first concerns the evolution of Tamil s distinctive modes of speaking, thinking, and singing. The second describes Tamil s major expressive themes, the stunning poems of love and war known as Sangam poetry, and Tamil s influence as a shaping force within Hinduism. Shulman tracks Tamil from its earliest traces at the end of the first millennium BCE through the classical period, 850 to 1200 CE, when Tamil-speaking rulers held sway over southern India, and into late-medieval and modern times, including the deeply contentious politics that overshadow Tamil today.Tamil is more than a language, Shulman says. It is a body of knowledge, much of it intrinsic to an ancient culture and sensibility. Tamil can mean both knowing how to love in the manner of classical love poetry and being a civilized person. It is thus a kind of grammar, not merely of the language in its spoken and written forms but of the creative potential of its speakers.

    Before the promised highways and jobs, everybody has been unfailingly given one thing—fear. For every individual, fear is now the daily bread. We are all experiencing fear; it comes to us in many different forms—from the moment we step out of our homes, with so many warnings ringing in our ears... It is only the lapdog media which is safe in India today. Jump into and snuggle down in the lap of authority and nobody will dare say anything to you.’At a time when free expression and individual liberty in India appear to be under serious threat, Ravish Kumar is one of our bravest and most mature public voices. Few journalists today have as keen an understanding of Indian society and politics and as strong a commitment to the truth. Fewer still can match him in eloquence and integrity. In this necessary book, he examines why debate and dialogue have given way to hate and intolerance in India, how elected representatives, the media and other institutions are failing us and looks at ways to repair the damage to our democracy.

    He argues that these turning points in the country’s history were not the result of foresight or careful planning but were rather the accidental consequences of major crises that had to be resolved at any cost.

    When, in 1947, the British divided and departed their most prized imperial possession, they handed a huge, diverse, and poor society to a small nationalist elite. For decades this elite would uphold a political construct, an idea of India grounded in democracy, religious tolerance, economic development, and cultural pluralism. Sunil Khilnani investigates the fate of this idea, offering incisive portraits of Gandhi, Nehru, and other Indian founders and assessing the lively debates among them and their successors over who is an Indian, the meaning of modernity, and India's place in the world.In a new introduction written for this edition, Khilnani reflects on the book's striking relevance to the country's recent developments--from the rise of a new billionaire class to the election of a government with a more exclusivist conception of Indian identity. Throughout, he provokes readers and illuminates a fundamental question as urgent now as ever: Can the original idea of India survive its own successes?

    The work is divided into three broad divisions of the natural course of cultural development in Ancient India: (1) From the prehistoric age to 600 B.C., (2) From 600 B.C. to 300 A.D., (3) From 300 A.D. to 1200 A.D.The work describes the political, economic, religious and cultural conditions of the country, the expansionist activities, the colonisation schemes of her rulers in the Far East. Political theories and administrative organizations are also discussed but more stress has been laid on the religious, literary and cultural aspects of Ancient India.Among the more important additions may be mentioned the chapters on the prehistoric age, including the Indus Valley Civilization, more detailed account of the ancient republican clans and the various medieval local dynasties, specially those of the south and the development of art and colonisation. Important changes, though much less extensive, have been made in chapters dealing with political theory and administrative system, as well as social and economic condition and an entirely new section on coins has been added. Considerable other modifications and rearrangements, involving re-grouping of chapters, have been made and more copious footnotes and fuller bibliography have been added for the guidance of advanced students.The book is of a more advanced type. It would meet the needs not only of general readers but also of earnest students who require a thorough grasp of the essential facts and features before taking up specialized study in any branch of the subject. It would also fulfil requirements of the candidates for competitive examinations in which Ancient Indian History and culture is a prescribed subject.

    At the same time, Roy makes clear that what millions of Indians need is not merely formal democracy, but liberation from the oppression, shame, and poverty imposed on them by India’s archaic caste system.

    Topics range from ruminations on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men to the haunting science fiction of J.G. Ballard; from the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell to the persistent agonies of anti-Semitism and jihad. Hitchens even looks at the recent financial crisis and argues for the enduring relevance of Karl Marx. The book forms a bridge between the two parallel enterprises of culture and politics. It reveals how politics justifies itself by culture, and how the latter prompts the former. In this fashion, Arguably burnishes Christopher Hitchens' credentials as (to quote Christopher Buckley) our "greatest living essayist in the English language."