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India since independence
ISBNs moved from this editionThe story of the forging of contemporary India, the world's largest democracy, is a rich and inspiring one. This volume analyses the challenges India has faced and the successes it has achieved over the last five decades, in the light of its colonial legacy and century-long struggle for freedom. In doing so, it shows how unique the Indian experience is in the Third World combining development with democracy and civil liberties. seeking the widest possible consensus, as also how the Nehruvian political and economic agenda and basics of foreign policy were evolved and developed. Essential to the quest for consolidation of the nation was the integration of the princely states, the linguistic reorganization of the states, the integration of the tribals into the mainstream and the countering of regional imbalances. Among the other contentious issues considered here, with all their implications for the present situation, are India's foreign policy, party politics in the Centre and the states, the Punjab problem, the growth of communalism, and anticaste politics and untouchability. There are detailed analyses of the Indian economy, including the reforms since 1991, the wide-ranging land reforms and the Green Revolution. These, along with the objective assessments of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Rajiv Gandhi, Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Atal Behari Vajpayee constitute a remarkable overview of a nation on the move.
Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
An alternative cover edition can be found here.'More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to...'Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English. From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue; its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity; its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling and pronunciation, Bryson covers all this as well as the many curious eccentricities that make it as maddening to learn as it is flexible to use.Bill Bryson's classic Mother Tongue is a highly readable and hilarious tale of how English came to be the world's language.
The Kailas At Ellora
Here, for the first time, American architect Roger Vogler examines this great Hindu temple carved downward from the top of a hillside in Maharashtra from the perspective of his fellow architect: the unknown sthapati who actually designed it thirteen centuries ago. The Kailas's magnificent sculptures and carved architectural details have all been extensively documented by many eminent scholars. The great volume of space that envelops them (which as every architect knows is designed with fully as much care and purpose as its solid stone) is, however, almost totally absent from their writings, as are the moral and religious messages that lie beneath these stones, hidden in metaphor. Not the least of these are the towering raw cliffs enclosing the temple's precincts: themselves metaphors for the presence of God. These absences have led to dozens of misunderstandings and erroneous conclusions regarding the monument itself and the intentions of its designer. Focusing not merely on its stones but on the meanings that lie beneath them as well, this book corrects these misunderstandings and rebuts these errors in the course of an entertaining and revelatory walking tour of the entire temple. Published in association with Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).
Autobiography of Dame Vera Lynn
A remarkable autobiography of the last great wartime icon, this account depicts the life and times of Dame Vera Lynn. Born Vera Welch on March 20, 1917 in the East End of London, Lynn’s career was set from an early agealong with her father, who also did a turn,” she sang in Working Men’s Clubs ate the mere age of seven years old. She had a successful radio career with Joe Loss and Charlie Kunz in the 1920s and 30s, but it was with World War II that she became the iconic figure that captured the imagination of the national public. Her spirit and verve, along with her ability to connect with the men fighting for their country and those left behind praying for their loved ones, made her the Forces’ sweetheart.” Performing the songs that she will always be associated with, such as We'll Meet Again” and Yours,” Vera toured Egypt, India, and Burma to entertain the troops and bring them a sense of back home.” Her career after the war flourished, with hits in the U.S. and the UK, but Vera was never able to leave behind her wartime role and was deeply affected by what she had seen. Still heavily involved with veteran and other charities, this is Dame Vera’s vivid story of her life and her warfrom bombs and rations to dance halls and the searing heat of her appearances abroad. Epitomizing British fortitude and hope, Dame Vera gives a vivid portrait of Britain at war and a unique story of one woman who came to symbolize a nation. Previously unpublished photographs of Dame Vera and wartime Britain from her personal archives are also included.
History of modern India
The SAGE Series in Modern Indian History consists of well-researched volumes with a wider scope and is intended to bring together the growing volume of historical studies that share a broad common historiographic focus. The approach that the authors have tried to evolve looks sympathetically, though critically, at the Indian national liberation struggle and other popular movements such as those of labour, peasants, lower castes, tribal peoples and women. The series also looks at colonialism as a structure and a system, and analyzes changes in economy, society and culture in the colonial context as also in the context of independent India. It focuses on communalism and casteism as major features of modern Indian development. The volumes in the series will tend to reflect this approach as also its changing and developing features. At the broadest plane this approach is committed to the Enlightenment values of rationalism, humanism, democracy and secularism. This set includes: Volume 1: Independence and Partition: The Erosion of Colonial Power in India by Sucheta Mahajan Volume 2: A Narrative of Communal Politics: Uttar Pradesh, 1937–39 by Salil Misra Volume 3: Imperialism, Nationalism and the Making of the Indian Capitalist Class, 1920–1947 by Aditya Mukherjee Volume 4: From Movement to Government: The Congress in the United Provinces, 1937–42 by Visalakshi Menon Volume 5: Peasants in India’s Non-Violent Revolution: Practice and Theory by Mridula Mukherjee Volume 6: Communalism in Bengal: From Famine to Noakhali, 1943–47 by Rakesh Batabyal Volume 7: Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47 by Shri Krishan Volume 8: The Garrison State: Military, Government and Society in Colonial Punjab, 1849–1947 by Tan Tai Yong Volume 9: Colonializing Agriculture: The Myth of Punjab Exceptionalism by Mridula Mukherjee Volume 10: Region, Nation, “Heartland”: Uttar Pradesh in India’s Body-Politic by Gyanesh Kudaisya Volume 11: National Movement and Politics in Orissa, 1920–29 by Pritish Acharya Volume 12: Commun
Sapiens by Yuval Noah harari
Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless other have conquered it: us.What makes us brilliant?What makes us deadly?What makes us sapiens?In this bold and provocative book, Yuval Noah Harari explores who we are, how we got here, and where we're going. Sapiens is the thrilling account of our history -- from insignificant apes to rulers of the world.(taken from the inside cover)
An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India
In the 18th century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannons, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalized racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial "gift" - from the railways to the rule of law - was designed in Britain's interests alone. He goes on to show how Britain's Industrial Revolution was founded on India's deindustrialization and the destruction of its textile industry. In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain's stained Indian legacy.
India's ancient past
R.S. Sharma, one of the best-known historians of early India, provides a comprehensive yet accessible text on the ancient period of Indian history. Beginning with topics such as historiography and the importance of Ancient Indian history, he goes on to cover the geographical, econological and linguistic settings, before looking at specific cultures of neolithic, chalcolithic types, the Harappan civilization, the Vedic period, the rise of Jainism and Buddhism, Magadha and the beginning of territorial states, the age of the Mauryas, Satavahanas, Guptas, and Harshavardhana. While taking the reader on this journey through time, he highlights important phenomena such as the beginning of urbanization and monarchy in India, invasions, the Varna system, commerce and trade, developments in philosophy and cultural efflorescence. He ends this insightful volume with a comments on the transition from the Ancient to the Medieval.This book also addresses a number of issues which have become current in discussion on Ancient Inida today, such as the Identity of the Aryan Culture, and Historical Construction. This is a volume meant for all those who want a masterly, lucid, yet eminently readable introduction to and overview on India's early history by one of the master-scholars of Indian history - be it students, tourists, or the interested lay reader
History of Indian English Literature
This book is a history of two hundred years of Indian literature in English, from 1800 to now. It is a revised, updated, text-only edition of An Illustrated History of Indian Literature in English, which was published to wide acclaim in 2003. The book comprises twenty-four chapters, written by some of India's foremost scholars and critics. Though the contributors are all experts in their chosen areas, they have written this book for the non-specialist general reader. From Kipling and Tagore to the later playwrights, poets, historians, naturalists, and diasporic writers of the twentieth century, this book spans a vast range of authors and genres. Biographical information on major literary figures is provided, and in most cases their work is historically contextualized.
Biography of Vinayak Savarkar Ji by Vikram Sampath (Price negotiable)
Decades after his death, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar continues to uniquely influence India's political scenario. An optimistic advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity in his treatise on the 1857 War of Independence, what was it that transformed him into a proponent of 'Hindutva'? A former president of the All-India Hindu Mahasabha, Savarkar was a severe critic of the Congress's appeasement politics. After Gandhi's murder, Savarkar was charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination. While he was acquitted by the court, Savarkar is still alleged to have played a role in Gandhi's assassination, a topic that is often discussed and debated.In this concluding volume of the Savarkar series, exploring a vast range of original archival documents from across India and outside it, in English and several Indian languages, historian Vikram Sampath brings to light the life and works of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, one of the most contentious political thinkers and leaders of the twentieth century.
Biography of Vinayak Savarkar Ji by Vikram Sampath (Price Negotiable)
As the intellectual fountainhead of the ideology of Hindutva, which is in political ascendancy in India today, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar is undoubtedly one of the most contentious political thinkers and leaders of the twentieth century. Accounts of his eventful and stormy life have oscillated from eulogizing hagiographies to disparaging demonization. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between and has unfortunately never been brought to light. Savarkar and his ideology stood as one of the strongest and most virulent opponents of Gandhi, his pacifist philosophy and the Indian National Congress.An alleged atheist and a staunch rationalist who opposed orthodox Hindu beliefs, encouraged inter-caste marriage and dining, and dismissed cow worship as mere superstition, Savarkar was, arguably, the most vocal political voice for the Hindu community through the entire course of India's freedom struggle. From the heady days of revolution and generating international support for the cause of India's freedom as a law student in London, Savarkar found himself arrested, unfairly tried for sedition, transported and incarcerated at the Cellular Jail, in the Andamans, for over a decade, where he underwent unimaginable torture.From being an optimistic advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity in his treatise on the 1857 War of Independence, what was it that transformed him in the Cellular Jail to a proponent of 'Hindutva', which viewed Muslims with suspicion?Drawing from a vast range of original archival documents across India and abroad, this biography in two parts-the first focusing on the years leading up to his incarceration and eventual release from the Kalapani-puts Savarkar, his life and philosophy in a new perspective and looks at the man with all his achievements and failings.
India A Civilization Of Differences
In India the caste system is a natural organizing principle wherein differences are embraced rather than ignored. Dani鬯u explores this seldom-heard side of the caste debate, and argues effectively in its favor. This rare collection of the late author's writings contains previously unpublished articles and examines the structure of Indian society before and after Western colonialism.
One Mountain Two Tigers
The May-June standoff in Ladakh between the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA caught not just India, but the world by surprise as everyone`s attention was on tackling the pandemic. Why did China choose this moment to become an aggressor militarily? What are the lingering disputes between these Asian giants, who would soon become the top two economies in the world? Is India`s claim to Aksai Chin based only on the security needs of colonial India? Or did Indian control over these areas go back in history? What have been the historical links with these areas with the Indian mainland? What is the geostrategic importance of Ladakh? Did internal tensions within the Chinese Communist Party cause relations with India to break down? Has India internalised the lessons of 1962, and how is it placed militarily in Ladakh? Has India fundamentally misunderstood China? Did the Wuhan Spirit and the Chennai Connect serve any purpose? Are there other critical dimensions to the India-China relations where the latter may be at a disadvantage? This book addresses these, and many such questions in detail.
The story of India
The Spanish conquest of the Americas in the 16th century was one of the most important and cataclysmic events in history. Spanish expeditions endured incredible hardships in order to open up the lands of the 'New World', and few stories in history can match these for drama and endurance. In Conquistadors, Michael Wood follows in the footsteps of some of the greatest of the Spanish adventurers travelling from the forests of Amazonia to Lake Titicaca, the deserts of North Mexico, the snowpeaks of the Andes and the heights of Machu Picchu. He experiences the epic journeys of Cortes, Pizarro, Orellana and Cabeza de Vaca, and explores the turbulent and terrifying events surrounding the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires. Wood brings these stories to vivid life, highlighting both the heroic accomplishments and the complex moral legacy of the European invasion. Conquistadors is Michael Wood at his best - thoughtful, provocative and gripping history.