Showing titles in South Asia

Kashmir, Gujarat, and the Punjab: The Ancient and Modern History of India’s Politically Divided States on the Border with Pakistan examines the various regions, the different civilizations that lived there, and what took place there over the last 5,000 years. You will learn about Kashmir, Gujarat, and the Punjab like never before.

Many associate Mahatma Gandhi with peace, but this should not be confused with passivity. Gandhi was an activist who helped India achieve independence from Britain, advocated for Indian rights in South Africa and at home, and improved the lives of India’s “untouchable” people. He did this all through nonviolent activism and thoughtful reflection on the nature of the injustices he saw around him. This short biography reveals the life experiences that made Gandhi an inspirational peacemaker with an international legacy.

Dr Kalam, who was India's 11th president and has been a scientist and a teacher, has written more than 20 books. Ranging from inspirational and spiritual thoughts, to autobiographical reflections, to his vision statements for a developed India, these works bear the imprint of a mind that is deeply reflective. For the first time, some of the most thoughtful, inspiring and educative of these writings have been compiled in one place in The Righteous Life.

Constructed over a span of about 20 years in the mid-17th century as a mausoleum for the wife of Emperor Shah Jahan, the Taj Mahal is aptly described by UNESCO, which designated it a World Heritage site, as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage".

In December 2012, the violent gang rape of a young Indian woman in Delhi shocked the world. India was a country of booming modernisation twinned with centuries-old cultural riches. Was the cruelty of the assault indicative of something profoundly disturbing lurking beneath the surface? Sunny Hundal's arresting exploration of how Indian society treats its women argues exactly this. As a country, India has a disproportionate amount of men to women. They are financial and often social burdens upon their parents.

Munoz provides new insight into Benazir Bhutto’s unprecedented rise and an unflinching, minute-by-minute narrative of the assassination itself. With impeccable research, Munoz also situates Bhutto in the decades-long history of U.S.-Pakistan relations and the emergence of global terrorism, pinpointing her death as the moment when those relations changed forever. The result is a gripping narrative of Pakistan’s turbulent political realities and the death of its leading politician.

A sweeping, interdisciplinary history of the world's third-largest river, a potent symbol across South Asia and the Hindu diaspora. Weaving together geography, environmental politics, and religious history, Sen offers a remarkable portrait of one of the world's largest and most densely populated river basins.

There are not many Indian heroes whose lives have been as dramatic and adventurous as that of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. That, however, is an assessment of his life based on what is widely known about him. These often revolve around his resignation from the Indian Civil Service, joining the freedom movement, to be exiled twice for over seven years, throwing a challenge to the Gandhian leadership in the Congress, taking up an extremist position against the British Raj, evading the famed intelligence network to travel to Europe and then to Southeast Asia.

India has a rich history covering thousands of years, civilizations, the rise of religions and empires, British rule, revolution, independence, and much more. In this book, we explore the magnificent history of India, from its ancient origins to its renaissance and concluding with its independence as a free nation. While there are many books that explore India’s unique history, few are enjoyable. Most books are hopelessly dry, academic, and downright difficult to follow. This concise history will respect your time by getting right to the point and giving you what you came to learn.

This Very Short Introduction looks at Pakistan as one of the two nation-states of the Indian subcontinent that emerged in 1947. Pippa Virdee reaches into the ancient past to demonstrate the influence of trajectories of human settlement and civilization on Pakistan's contemporary political arena, and shows how the longer continuities between the land and its peoples are as important as the short-term changes in the political landscape. She considers Pakistan's religion and society, the state and the military, everyday life, popular culture, languages and literature.

Operation Searchlight was the code name for a planned military operation carried out by the Pakistan Army in an effort to curb the Bengali nationalist movement in former East Pakistan....

Rebels Against the Raj tells the little-known story of seven people who chose to struggle for a country other than their own: foreigners to India who across the late 19th to late 20th century arrived to join the freedom movement fighting for independence. Of the seven, four were British, two American and one Irish. Four men, three women. Before and after being jailed or deported they did remarkable and pioneering work in a variety of fields: journalism, social reform, education, organic agriculture, environmentalism.

For more than 200 years, the Mughal Empire dominated the Indian subcontinent. It became one of the largest empires on the planet, with an army of almost one million men at arms and an economy that was stronger than any other at the time. The Mughal Empire developed new art and architecture, and some of the things created during this empire are still regarded as iconic representations of India.

Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) was an established Urdu short story writer and a rising screenwriter in Bombay at the time of India's partition in 1947, and he is perhaps best known for the short stories he wrote following his migration to Lahore in newly formed Pakistan. Ayesha Jalal draws on Manto's stories, sketches, and essays, as well as a trove of his private letters, to present an intimate history of partition and its devastating toll.

In 1611, 34-year-old Nur Jahan, daughter of a Persian noble and widow of a subversive official, became the 20th and favorite wife of Emperor Jahangir, who ruled the vast Mughal Empire. Nur's confident assertion of talent and power is revelatory; it far exceeded the authority of her female contemporaries in Renaissance Europe, including Elizabeth I. Here, she finally receives her due in a deeply researched and evocative biography that awakens us to a fascinating history.

"I thought the nation was coming to an end", wrote Khushwant Singh, looking back on the violence of Partition that he was witness to over half a century ago. He believed then that he had seen the worst that India could do to herself. But after the violence in Gujarat in 2002, he felt that the worst, perhaps, is still to come. Analysing the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the burning of Graham Staines and his children, the targeted killings by terrorists in Punjab and Kashmir, Singh confronts the absolute corruption of religion that has made us among the most brutal people on earth.

Home to the world’s most ancient religions and practices, India is indeed a nation enriched with a fascinating history. The subcontinent has hosted a legion of great empires, monumental battles, religions, cultures, foreign invasions, and much more. From prehistoric to modern, 50 of the most formative eras of the subcontinent are discussed. Relating the zenith and nadir of India’s past, this audiobook provides crisp and riveting accounts of one of the world’s most ancient nations.

Today, mobile connections are so readily accessible that it is perhaps easy to forget the time when only the elite had access to a phone provided by the sole operator: the Government of India. It all changed in the early 1990s as liberalisation stirred the Indian economy out of its decades of complacency. The Telecom Wars begins its narration from those times, traversing the uncertain early years of the mobile phone industry. It is a vivid portrait of the fierce competition as Tata, Birla, Reliance, and Bharti bid to capture the lion’s share of India’s billion voices.

Written by an eminent economist, Bimal Jalan, Emerging India: Economics, Politics and Reforms talks about India's growth from the post-reform 1991 era to the modern days and the various challenges plaguing various arms of the government. In this book, Jalan praises the democratic setup that runs this complex and diverse country. Jalan produces a detailed account of the Indian economy and the way it has functioned and the various obstacles in front of it.

The Mughal Empire, also known as the Moghul Empire, lasted for about three centuries, and at its peak, it covered 3.2 million square kilometers, from the outer borders of the Indus Basin in the west to the highlands of Assam and Bangladesh in the east, and from Afghanistan and Kashmir in the north to the Deccan Plateau in the south. The Mughal Empire also took the territories of what used to be known as Hindustan in the northern Indian subcontinent.