Kategoria BISAC: History >> Asia - South - India

In less that one hundred years, the British made themselves the masters of India. They ruled for another hundred, leaving behind the independent nations of India and Pakistan when they finally withdrew in 1947. Both nations would owe much to the British Raj: under its rule, Indians learned to see themselves as Indians; its benefits included railways, roads, canals, schools, universities, hospitals, universal language and common law.

None of this, however, was planned. After a series of emergencies in the eighteenth century transformed a business partnership-the East India...

In sixteen linked essays, Nobel Prize--winning economist Amartya Sen discusses India's intellectual and political heritage and how its argumentative tradition is vital for the success of its democracy and secular politics. The Argumentative Indian is "a bracing sweep through aspects of Indian history and culture, and a tempered analysis of the highly charged disputes surrounding these subjects--the nature of Hindu traditions, Indian identity, the country's huge social and economic disparities, and its current place in the world" (Sunil Khilnani, Financial Times, U.K.).

"Among many recent books on Pakistan, Mr. Akbar's stands out....A fine and detailed history of Indian Muslim anger and insecurity."
--The Economist

In Tinderbox, India's leading journalist delivers a fascinating narrative history of Pakistan, chronicling the conflict between Muslim and Hindu cultures in South Asia and describing the role that their relationship has played in defining both the country and the region. Editorial director of India Today and editor of the Sunday Guardian, M. J. Akbar gives readers an unprecedented look at Pakistan...

The poetry of Bullhe Shah (d. 1758) is considered one of the glories of premodern Panjabi literature. Born in Uch, Panjab, in present-day Pakistan, Bullhe Shah drew profoundly upon Sufi mysticism in his writings. His lyrics, famous for their vivid style and outspoken denunciation of artificial religious divisions, have long been held in affection by Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, and they continue to win audiences today across national boundaries and in the global Panjabi diaspora. Indeed, many young people in South Asia are already acquainted--albeit unknowingly at times--with the iconic...

B.R. 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...

An entertaining and provocative account of India's past, written by one of the country's leading thinkers

For all India's myths, its sea of stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. In Incarnations, Sunil Khilnani fills that space, bringing to life fifty extraordinary men and women who changed both India and the world. Journeying across India in pursuit of their stories--visiting slum temples, ayurvedic call centers, Bollywood studios, textile mills, and Mughal fortresses--Khilnani offers trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors,...

A classic since it was first published in 1997, this magisterial historical study addresses the paradoxes and ironies of the world's largest democracy. 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. In The Idea of India, Khilnani investigates the fate of this idea, offering incisive portraits of Gandhi,...