Book Review

Articles

• Dissecting a Dictator amid Western Hypocrisy | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  7 June 2025, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution
  by Lindsey Hilsum
  Faber and Faber
  Pages: xxi + 228; Price: Rs 599
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  That Muammar Gaddafi suffered a horrible death at the hands of some of those he had tormented for decades is no news. That he, his family as well as cronies bled Libya during the 42 years that he presided over the country is also known. What makes award-winning journalist Lindsey Hilsum

• Afghans the West Betrayed | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  1 April 2023, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
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  Escape from Kabul: The Inside Story by Levison Wood and Geraint Jones Hodder & Stoughton 2023 Pages: 340; Price: Rs 899 ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1399718126 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1399718127
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  The Americans led a brutal war in Afghanistan for two long and bloody decades, vowing to usher in democracy despite the terrible failures in Vietnam and Iraq. And like earlier, the Americans one day decided that enough was enough. But the military pullout, which was long in the (…)

• 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, (…)

• Karunanidhi’s Rise and Rise — And Fall | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  9 September 2022, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
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  Karunanidhi: A Life
  by A.S. Panneerselvan
  Penguin/Viking
  ISBN: 9780670082940
  Pages: 450
  Price: Rs 699
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  Who was the real Muthuvel Karunanidhi?
  A statesman and a visionary? A corrupt politician? A strong advocate of federalism? A Tamil chauvinist? Secular to the core? Anti-Hindu? A leader who aided Tamil Nadu’s progress? LTTE’s godfather? Social reformer?
  It would be extremely difficult for anyone to do a political autopsy of one of India’s (…)

• Hao Chen Review of Price’s Cold War Deceptions
  21 September 2024

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Cold War Deceptions:
  The Asia Foundation and the CIA
  by David H. Price
  University of Washington Press
  2024. 358 pp.
  (paper), ISBN 978-0-295-75224-2
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  Reviewed by Hao Chen (Dartmouth College)
  In his most recent book, Cold War Deceptions: The Asia Foundation and the CIA, anthropologist and historian David H. Price offers one of the most comprehensive accounts that examines the covert operation and financial maneuvering (…)

• Will there ever be peace in Gaza? | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  24 May 2025, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Gaza: A History
  by Jean-Pierre Filiu
  (Translated by John King)
  Pan MacMillan India
  Pages: xix + 563; Price: Not mentioned
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  It is difficult to imagine a more impoverished strip of land which lies at the heart of one of the most enduring and seemingly most intractable of historical disputes. Also called a dense open-air prison, Gaza is where peace will have to come first if the dragging Israeli-Palestinian row needs to (…)

• Maria Cristina Galmarini. Review of Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, The Afterlife of the ’Soviet Man’
  2 December 2023

  BOOK REVIEW
  Reviewed by Maria Cristina Galmarini (College of William & Mary)
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  The Afterlife of the

• A Legendary Conservationist
  2 August 2025, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Snakes, Drugs and Rock

• Review of Pannekoek’s ’The Workers
  19 July 2025

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  The Workers

• A Dalit Activist
  8 February 2025, by Arup Kumar Sen

  Indian communist parties have often failed in weaving Indian identities into the language of left politics; Dalit or lower caste identities, gender-based identities, tribal identities are prominent among those. India