Book Review

Articles

• Book Review: A Classic on Bangladesh Liberation War | M R Narayan Swamy
  28 December 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
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  Bangladesh War: Report from Ground Zero
  Manas Ghosh
  Niyogi Books
  Pages: 220; Price: Rs 695
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  Pakistan’s military carried out a stinking genocide in East Pakistan in 1971, with the Chinese becoming accomplices in the mass murder, rape and torture. But terrible crimes were committed by the Nixon-Kissinger administration. That they actively came out against the Bengalis of East Pakistan and India is known. Former journalist Manas Ghosh reveals that the US (…)

• Review: Raghavan on Vijayan’s Midnight’s Borders
  21 October 2022, by G Narasimha Raghavan

  BOOK REVIEW
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  Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India
  by Suchitra Vijayan
  Context (an imprint of Westland Publication)
  2021. Pages 320. Rs 699.
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  The Dawn, on Sep 14, 2022, carried a piece on the demise of Queen Elizabeth II, and the last line went this way: “The queen is dead; I hope the system of corruption and looting, of occupation and genocide that she represented perishes too”. Along with these cardinal debaucheries, one would add wanton (…)

• An Insightful Peep into Pakistan’s Minorities | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  2 June 2023, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
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  A White Trail: A Journey into the Heart of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities
  by Haroon Khalid
  Vintage/Penguin Random House Pages: xxi + 334; Price: Rs 399 (PP) ISBN: 9780143460770
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  How do religious minorities cope up in overwhelmingly Islamic Pakistan? Pakistan is not just a country founded by and for Muslims but it has taken great pains to educate entire generations to look down upon the "other" (read minorities), particularly since General Zia ul-Haq (…)

• Review of The 1945 Burma Campaign and the Transformation of the British Indian Army
  21 May 2022

  Reviewed by Ryan W. Booth (Washington State University)
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  The 1945 Burma Campaign and the Transformation of the British Indian Army
  by Raymond Callahan, Daniel Marston
  Lawrence: University Press of Kansas January 2021 296 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0700630414 Hardcover: ISBN 978-0-7006-3041-7 __0__
  If ever there was a war that probably did not need another book written about it, World War II might be a good candidate. Raymond A. Callahan and Daniel Marston enter the fray and beg to (…)

• Book Review of Lise Morjé Howard, Power in Peacekeeping | Chiara Ruffa
  13 June 2020

  Reviewed by Chiara Ruffa (Uppsala University)
  Lise Morjé Howard. Power in Peacekeeping. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 274 pp. $29.99 (paper), ISBN 978-1-108-45718-7
  Lise Howard’s The Power of Peacekeeping is about how peacekeeping works and how peacekeepers achieve their ends. Building on Robert Dahl’s conceptualization of power, Howard argues that peacekeepers can be effective in three ways, via persuasion, inducement, and coercion.[1] Persuasion works mainly verbally, (…)

• Review of Jane Mumby’s Dismantling the League of Nations | Madeleine Dungy
  18 January 2025

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Dismantling the League of Nations: The Quiet Death of an International Organization, 1945-8
  by Jane Mumby
  Bloomsbury Academic
  2024. ix + 252 pp.
  (e-book (pdf)), ISBN 978-1-350-37690-8;
  (e-book), ISBN 978-1-350-37692-2
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  Reviewed by Madeleine Dungy
  Today, as multilateral organizations are coming under strain, it has become clear that we lack insight into the processes through which they might be streamlined, (…)

• Review of Gareth Leng, Rhodri Ivor Leng, The Matter of Facts | Jessica R. Avery
  19 August 2022

  BOOK REVIEW
  __0__ The Matter of Facts: Skepticism, Persuasion, and Evidence in Science
  by Gareth Leng, Rhodri Ivor Leng
  Cambridge: MIT Press 2020. Illustrations. 376 pp (cloth), ISBN 978-0-262-04388-5; (e-book), ISBN 978-0-262-35828-6.
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  Reviewed by Jessica R. Avery (DePaul University)
  As the title suggests, Gareth Leng and Rhodri Ivor Leng’s collaborative book, The Matter of Facts: Skepticism, Persuasion, and Evidence in Science, presents an insightful, critical, and (…)

• Book Review: Quraishi’s The Population Myth | Chanda Rani and Aamir Raza
  1 April 2022

  Reviewers: Chanda Rani and Aamir Raza * __0__
  The Population Myth: Islam, family Planning and Politics in India by S.Y. Quraishi
  HarperCollins India 2021, 256 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9390351545 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9390351541 __0__
  In recent years particularly after the landslide victory of the BJP in 2014 its followers, leaders and biased Media have vigorously perpetuated the propaganda that Muslims are deliberately increasing their population to outnumber the Hindus in India. A common (…)

• Scanning P.C. Joshi’s Biography | Daya Varma
  18 April 2009, by Daya Varma

  Review Article
  The following review article has been sent to the Mainstream editor on April 6 with a note from the reviewer that reads:
  “I am submitting a review of Gargi Chakravartty’s P.C. Joshi: A Biography for favour of publication in Mainstream weekly. Not living in India, I was able to get the book only a while ago. Nevertheless I feel reviews of this important book reflecting different experiences and perspectives do not get dated. I hope Mainstream will be generous enough to (…)

• Review: Raghavan on Heinze’s ’The Most Human Right’
  8 July 2022, by G Narasimha Raghavan

  Book Review by G Narasimha Raghavan __0__
  The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech Is Everything by Eric Heinze London: The MIT Press 2002 211 Pages ISBN 9780262046459 (hardcover) $27.95
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  Interestingly, the visual artist and utopian author, Robert Alan Silverstein’s statement is accurate on its timing: "The evolution of the human rights movement clearly illustrates humanity’s ongoing struggle toward creating a better world." It is struggle, struggle and struggle that the author, (…)