Book Review

Articles

• IFS Officer Recalls Charms, Challenges | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  22 July 2022, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW __0__
  Indian Foreign Service: Charms and Challenges by T.P. Sreenivasan
  Current Books ISBN : 978-93-5482-615-3 Pages:108 Price: Rs 250 https://ebooks.dcbooks.com/indian-foreign-service-charms-and-challenges
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  Nawaz Sharif told Inder Kumar Gujral that neither could India give Kashmir to Pakistan nor could Islamabad take it; most Indian expatriates may have their minds in India but do not want to live there; Foreign Secretary Jagat Mehta was eased out of office by a (…)

• Smith on Moseley, ’Marx’s Theory of Value in Chapter 1 of Capital: A Critique of Heinrich’s Value-Form Interpretation’
  7 September 2024

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Marx’s Theory of Value in Chapter 1 of Capital: A Critique of Heinrich’s Value-Form Interpretation
  by Fred Moseley
  Palgrave Macmillan 2023. xxix + 167 pp. (cloth), ISBN 978-3-031-13209-4.
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  Reviewed by Jason E. Smith (Art Center College of Design)
  Marx and Method
  For the past few decades, Fred Moseley, a professor of economics at Mount Holyoke College until his recent retirement in 2016, has been a leading figure in (…)

• Uncovering Brutalities of Russian Revolution | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  3 September 2022, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
  __0__ Russia :
  Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921
  by Antony Beevor
  Weidenfeld & Nicolson
  Pages: 576;
  Price: Rs 1,399
  __0__ There is no doubt that life under Tsar was a torture to most people in Russia. Conditions in factories were appalling and dangerous. Strikes were outlawed. If you got sacked, large numbers of impoverished peasants were ready to take your place. In any dispute with factory owners, the police always backed them. Workers slept in barracks and (…)

• Review of Bennett, M. Todd, Neither Confirm nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency | Chuck Steele
  11 August 2024

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Neither Confirm nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency
  by M. Todd Bennett
  Columbia University Press 2023. 384 pp ISBN 978-0-231-19347-4 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-19346-7
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  Reviewed by Chuck Steele
  Despite the centrality of the ocean research vessel Glomar Explorer to this fascinating story, this is not a book intended for an audience of environmental historians. It is, however, a first-rate (…)

• Review: Last among equals by M.R Sharan | Aamir Raza
  20 May 2023

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Aamir Raza
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  Last among equals: Power, Caste and Politics in Bihar’s Villages
  by M.R Sharan Westland Publications 2021 / 229 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9390679664 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9390679669 __0__
  In India, the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) were established to promote self-governance at the grassroots level and facilitate the social and economic development of rural areas. However, despite initial enthusiasm for this decentralization movement, the system has (…)

• Review of The Rafale Deal: Flying Lies? by Ravi Nair and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta | Shubham Sharma
  13 May 2023

  Book Review:
  by Shubham Sharma
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  The Rafale Deal: Flying Lies? The Role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India’s Biggest Defence Scandal
  by Ravi Nair and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
  2022. pp 532 HB: Rs 795
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  Until recently, India, like other Western-capitalist countries, lacked a robust domestic ‘military-industrial complex’ (MIC). It could be defined as the presence of a defence procurement mechanism which involves a transactional nexus between private group(s) that (…)

• A Gripping Saga of India
  17 May 2025, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  The Scam That Shook a Nation: The Nagarwala Scandal
  by Prakash Patra, Rasheed Kidwai
  HarperCollins India
  Pages: xi + 263; Price: Rs 399
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  It is a story that has been told, literally, a million times. But when Prakash Patra and Rahseed Kidwai, two extremely capable journalists, recap the story with their penchant for thorough research, it becomes a book you just cannot put down.
  The sensational incident which the book (…)

• Reading Arundhati Roy Against My Will | Disha
  22 May, by Disha

  For most of my life I have read political writing with a sense of duty rather than desire. I read to stay informed, not to feel changed. The books I encountered often seemed to assume a reader who could absorb weight without needing warmth, and I finished them more knowledgeable, but no more connected to the world they described.
  When I picked up the memoir Mother Mary Comes To Me, I expected the same. I did not expect the book to reach the private interior of my reluctance or alter the (…)

• Revisiting the 1943 Bengal Famine | Arup Kumar Sen
  19 July 2024, by Arup Kumar Sen

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
  The Bengal famine of 1943 has found expressions in the academic discourse over the years. Amartya Sen’s Poverty and Famines (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1981) and Paul R. Greenough’s Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal: The Famine of 1943-44 (Oxford University Press, 1982) are classic books on the subject. Madhusree Mukerjee’s more recent book titled Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II (Basic (…)

• Review of Srinivasulu Karli’s Caste, Dominance and Resistance
  12 May

  BOOK REVIEW
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  Caste, Dominance and Resistance