India Books

I found this a story of courage that will make you question humanity and wonder what makes some people tick. It also gives a background to history in India at Independance and what it meant to the British

A true story that will get you hooked. Like an Indian 'Angela's Ashes' much betrayal and heartache that also tells you about Indian history. One man's determination against the odds.

on the page 20 of the book is written:"The Nagpur session was the turning point in the history of the subcontinent, which had far reaching consequences and water shed over the history not only of South Asia but of the entire world. the seeds of fundamentalism were sown in this historic session that has now bedeviled the world today".
in the context of this para, my reviews are: the roots of fundamentalism and terrorism which have permeated over the modern world took its birth in the policies and political ideas of Mahatma Ghandi Gi, who himself fell victim of outrageous terrorism at the hand of a Hindu fanatic, named by Nathu Ram Godsay. though apparently, Ghandi Gi was a preacher and propounder of the theory of non-violance in politics, but he miserabley failed to forsee and understand the evil consequences of involving Relegion into politics which was forseen by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan.
very interestingly and astonishingly, the intellectuals and scholars of the modern world are beating about bush about the roots of fundamentalism.

on the page 20 of the book is written:"The Nagpur session was the turning point in the history of the subcontinent, which had far reaching consequences and water shed over the history not only of South Asia but of the entire world. the seeds of fundamentalism were sown in this historic session that has now bedeviled the world today".
in the context of this para, my reviews are: the roots of fundamentalism and terrorism which have permeated over the modern world took its birth in the policies and political ideas of Mahatma Ghandi Gi, who himself fell victim of outrageous terrorism at the hand of a Hindu fanatic, named by Nathu Ram Godsay. though apparently, Ghandi Gi was a preacher and propounder of the theory of non-violance in politics, but he miserabley failed to forsee and understand the evil consequences of involving Relegion into politics which was forseen by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan.

It is perhaps a mark of how far Kali has come as a goddess revered and celebrated in the West, that there is a steady increase in cautionary academic studies about "the real Kali." I'm waiting for a spate of corresponding articles about whether Indian Christians have "adopted" the "real" Jesus, or whether there is inevitable distortion, etc.

Are gods culture-bound, mere artifacts of geography, time, and social mores? If the answer to this is 'yes,' then what does that make religion? The sacred? Put another way, the question could be understood as one of what gods are; if they are not universally accessible, then in what sense are they gods?

This is the persistent question that emerged for me as I read through these essays. The writing itself is good, as you would expect. Most of these pieces are written in typical academic fashion, with much reference to the work of other academics, analysis of the literature, and so forth...but there is also the welcome change-of-pace instance of someone for whom Kali isn't simply an object of study and a medium of grantsmanship. One thing these authors should do--and I have seen this failing in several other texts, as well--is provide a legend that decrypts the many dots, underlines, and other markings used to indicate the pronunciation of various Indian words. What good are these symbolic notations without a key of some sort?

That aside--and given the major caveat offered at the beginning of this review--I recommend this as a useful resource to anyone desiring a better understanding of "the Kali phenomenon." As for an understanding of Kali, that is outside the province of academic quibbling and the struggle over who owns the gods.

This collection of scholarly essays is an easy and enjoyable read for scholars and laypersons alike. What's so great about it is how many perspectives it gives on, as another reviewer noted, "the Kali phenomenon." McDermott and others tear away notions Westerners have of Kali, and present a much broader picture of her mythology, worship and cultural significance. McDermott's concluding essay spearheads the Western fascination with Kali, and dispels many myths along the way - including common etymological mistakes made frequently by feminist scholars and writers on Kali.

Western devotees of Kali should especially consider reading this volume - it will give necessary depth and breadth to your understanding of this complex Goddess, and is exceptionally readable. As this book was primarily written by and for scholars who are familiar with Sanskrit, those unfamiliar with transliteration diacritics will want to refer to online sources. Devotees who have Swami Satyananda Saraswati's excellent Kali Puja book will find a transliteration pronunciation guide in the back, which would be useful in this context.

One of the few books I've read where the translation adds to the book. The style is fabulously readable and interesting - English spiced with the idiom of the subcontinent. Dr Iqbal comes across as, not just talented and purposeful, but a tremendously nice guy and it's great to see that a nice guy can succeed in so many areas by being a decent human being in the face of so much self-promoting corruption. He seems to embody the idea of the open hand, open heart, open mind. We need more statesmen of such caliber.

This book was so interesting I couldn't put it down. It describes a life fully lived, fun, engaged and delighting in people, creating and joining in culture, promoting understanding and harmony.

The writer Javid Iqbal is the son of Allama Iqbal, the great poet/Philosophy of the Indian Subcontinent.
Justice Javid Iqbal has chronicled an insightful biography wich is divided into 6 major themes.

1. Childhood
2. His Education (Doctoral Degree in Philosophy at Cambridge and Bar at Law)
3. Life as a Lawyer/Diplomat
4. Political Career in 1971.
5. Judicial Career as Justice spanning from 1971-1989.

Justice Javid born in 1924 is older than the state of Pakistan. While recounting his years, he has brilliantly managed to synthesize why the Pakistan nation has failed to understand the true ideals of Jinnah and Iqbal.

This autobiography also contains lessons for the Pakistani nation to understand the shortcoming of our political & Judicial system and to rectify these deficiences and hypocrisy of the Pakistani leaders (Bhutto and Zia) to project islam as means to consolidate their reigns.

As columnist Tara Patel (Afternoon Despatch & Courier, Jan 6th 2000) writes; "Some of the most interesting cookery books are those which tell you as much about the people as the cuisine which has evolved alongside them." Enduring Flavours - In Appreciation of East Indian Cuisine" is one such book.

The chef as historian? While the notion may seem incongruous at first, it soon becomes clear that the search for a particular recipe, authentic flavours can lead to a very fascinating journey down the ages. The cuisine of a people unravels fascinating insights, when and how certain foods and spices make their way into a diet? Enduring Flavours is a heady combination of the culture, traditions followed by the recipes of the East Indians. Illustrated by several sketches by Eustace Fernandes and a series of paintings by the East Indian artist from Vasai 'Philip Victor D'Mello' Sunday Mid-Day 18th Dec 99

This book reports a rare success story in Third World conservation: the rise of grassroots-level forest management in Kumaon, India. In the colonial period, the British tried to stop deforestation by increasingly authoritarian methods. This failed; the local countryfolk, prevented from using their forests for subsistence needs, protested more and more seriously, ultimately resorting to arson. Eventually the British got the message and eased off. Fortunately, the Indian government later built on this perception, and gave more and more management rights to the Kumaonese. They rose to the occasion, and now manage the forests reasonably well. Arun Agrawal uses a Foucauldian approach to analyze the development of local management in an extremely fine-grained, detailed, careful way. The benefit of this approach is that it has stimulated a uniquely thorough and fair ethnography. The cost of this approach is its narrow focus on government and "subjects"--there is no independent assessment of how well the forests are actually doing. One wishes for a biologist's input. Still, any success story, even relative, is welcome these days, and this book will be very useful to anyone interested in comanagement of resources or resource conservation in general. We simply have to involve local people and respect their needs, in every conservation project, and this book is notably good at detailing one way a governmental system actually did that.

Arun Agrawal's book offers a fresh approach to consider how subjectivities change, particularly in terms of how environmentalism happens at an individual and social level. Agrawal borrows from a number of different fields, including anthropology and history, to pursue these questions. His approach differs from several dominant schools that address these issues. One group of scholars, when talking about rural citizens in developing countries, assume that their needs are primarily material and antagonistic to any sense of long-term environmental care. "Environmentalist sensibilities don't make any sense unless their bellies are full" they say. Another group of scholars argues that rural women, because they rely on natural resources for their familiy's daily needs, are actually quite environmentally minded.

Agrawal does not follow either of these approaches, and questions a number of their premises. To carry out his inquiry, Agrawal examines a region in India that was famous for its resistance to British forest protection during the colonial era. This area resisted British authority by lighting hundreds of deliberately set fires. Surprisingly, Agrawal now finds that a number of villages are forming their own community-based groups for forest protection, and he seeks to discover what accounts for these changes.

In his explanation, Agrawal draws on Foucauldian and other post-structural thought, but does so in novel ways. He is trying to examine the process of how subjects change over time, and even over the course of one lifetime. His writing is lively and his analysis is sharp. I highly recommend this book for those interested in social change, social theory, environmentalism, and new interdisciplinary approaches.

Rubin was an economic historian and Bolshevik murdered by the Soviet state in the late 1920's during the Stalinist purges.

The terminology is old-fashioned but the ideas are surprising and original. Unlike most interpreters of Marx, Rubin actually extends and clarifies Marx's theory of economic value. He explains how Marx's theory of value is essentially concerned with how markets allocate the total available labour of a society to different productive activities. Rubin examines the dynamic, causal relationship between labour time and monetized market exchanges. This is a very different point of view compared to most post-war interpretations of Marx's economic theory. Rubin's book is required reading for anyone who seriously wants to understand Marx's theory of value, and is an undisputed classic of Marxist political economy.

This is the best of the many interpretations of Marx's political economy. It may not be for beginners, who might want to take a look at Perlman's "Reproduction of Everyday Life," Ollman's "What is Marxism," and "Alienation," and, perhaps, Rius' "Marx for Beginners." Even Fischer's "How to Read Karl Marx," is an easier start. Marty Glaberman's work is exemplary in many was as well. But sooner or later the serious critic is going to need to encounter the incredible insights of these two. Perlman and Rubin truly grasp the interaction of commodity fetishism and the social relations capital produces--as a source of enlightened hope. Perlman, who died in his early fifties in Detroit, led a life that was guided by the thought his comrade-wife, Loraine, captured in the title of her book about him, "Having little, being much." Perlman hand-made his earlier books on his own press--with a small collective of people. I think he was trying to demonstrate the possible unity of aesthetics, love, community, work, and the struggle for the truth. The introduction of "Essays" alone is worth the candle.

Perlman's "Continuing Appeal of Nationalism," done on the Black and Red Press, is an interesting counterpoint, as is the huge "Against Leviathan."

This is a truly excellent account of ethnic mobilization in south India. Through the detailed and absorbing examination of a case, the author explores the nuances of ethnic identity and mobilization and the sustained importance (contrary to the dominant view) of populist politics in today's world. This is an important contribution to understanding Indian democracy, which shows the limits of most contemporary accounts. By drawing on strands in political science, sociology and historical anthropology, the book provides an innovative approach to theorizing in the social sciences.

Subramanian's text is the definitive work on Dravidian politics. Tightly woven and finely nuanced, "Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization" is a vital addition to the Indian social science canon. The text shall be of immense value to historians, social scientists, students, and professionals working in the field of Indian politics or seeking a thorough introduction to it.

This is an outstanding book with excellent content, tips and pictures. The 11 of us on the trek kept passing it around for helpful information.

I have a number of books on the Everest Region including Lonely Planets Trekking the Nepal Himalaya, Trailblazers Trekking the Everest Region and Berezuchas Trekking in Nepal. For details relating to route descriptions, photos, and practical info for the specific region I find this guide the best. It is very well written from its descriptions of the various main and side treks to the feel within the teahouse lodges. I have not been there yet so I cant verify the accuracy but Im very impressed. I have been posting to Lonely Planets Thorn Tree asking about various alternative trekking routes and have had some posters who had already been there say they didnt even know those options existed. The book is also smaller than some guides and the paper quality seems superior to the others. Its great to see some beautiful color photos. This guide clinched my decision to trek in the Everest Area. Hope this Helps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fire up for a successful future by learning lessons on how to succeed from this great book of the past. Although Every Man a King was originally published way back in 1906, the principles of positive thinking that are contained therein still apply, and can help you to achieve your goals in the future.

Also recommend:The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: King Solomon's Secrets to Success, Wealth, and Happiness, Everything I Needed to Know About Success, I Learned in the Bible (And So Can You!) and Think and Grow Rich.

Long before Carolyn Myss and other influential intuitive mystics, Orisen Swett Marden knew the effect that negative thoughts have on the body and one's life-force: "Joyfulness keeps the heart and face young." In this simple but profound "how-to" book, one learns inner strength and character and how to cultivate thoughts that keep the mind and body healthy and one's environment optimistic and hopeful. Very inspiring and influential. I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like better control over their life and their attitudes toward it.