Book Review

Articles

• Periyar’s Revolutionary Critique of Religion | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  13 August 2022, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW __0__
  Periyar: A Study in Political Atheism by Karthick Ram Manoharan
  Orient BlackSwan March 2022 Pages: 133; Price: Rs 225 ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9354421679 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9354421679
  Believe it or not, it was Periyar’s pilgrimage to one of the holiest places of Hinduism that converted him into the religion’s inveterate enemy. Another irony is that though Periyar is revered in Tamil Nadu, the appeal of gods and religion remains firmly entrenched in the state.
  E.V. Ramasamy (…)

• Powerful endeavour to counter the identity of the country on an ascriptive criteria | Naveen R Nath
  21 October 2023

  BOOK REVIEW
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  The Theory of the Basic Structure: Saviour of the Constitution and Democracy
  by Vijay Kumar
  Aakar Books Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 202 pages ISBN‏ : ‎ 9789350028278 Price: Rs.595/-
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  The theory of the ‘basic structure’ of the constitution propounded by the largest–ever bench of 13 judge by the Supreme Court in historic Kesavanand Bharti is in news, not only for 50 years of its formulation, but also for well-orchestrated attack on the theory by the former Chief (…)

• Review of Weiner’s The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  23 August 2025

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]

• Memoirs of an Exalite | Sreejith K
  19 October 2024

  BOOK REVIEW
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  Oranweshanathinte katha
  by K. Venu
  DC Books 2023, 752 pages ISBN: 9789354829383
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  Reviewed by Sreejith K
  In an iconic scene from Sandesham, which has over the years acquired a cult status amongst the Malayalis for its trenchant political satire, a communist party worker, Sreenivasan, during a pennukaanal (would-be bride seeing), after some perfunctory questions on Marxism to the bewilderment of the girl, asks her whether she would be willing to spend the (…)

• Cultural Transformation at the End of Soviet Socialism
  29 July

  BOOK REVIEW The Spirit of Socialism: Culture and Belief at the Soviet Collapse by Joseph Kellner
  Cornell University Press 2025. 242 pp. (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5017-8151-3 Reviewed by Margaret McCool
  Joseph Kellner’s monograph, The Spirit of Socialism: Culture and Belief at the Soviet Collapse, offers a fresh and illuminating perspective on how ordinary Soviet citizens navigated the collapse of the Soviet Union by turning to new cultural phenomena to orient themselves to a rapidly changing (…)

• Review of Intondi’s, Saving the World from Nuclear War | Eric Ross
  4 January 2025

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Saving the World from Nuclear War: The June 12, 1982, Disarmament Rally and Beyond
  by Vincent J. Intondi
  Johns Hopkins University Press
  Johns Hopkins Nuclear History and Contemporary Affairs Series
  2023. 152 pp.
  (paper), ISBN 978-1-4214-4640-0
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  Reviewed by Eric Ross (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
  In Saving the World from Nuclear War, Vincent J. Intondi offers a concise yet comprehensive examination of the context (…)

• Trump Marries Republican Politics to Authoritarianism | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  12 July 2025, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Democracy Awakening:
  Notes on the State of America
  by Heather Cox Richardson
  W H Allen/Penguin Random House
  2024
  Pages: xvii + 286, ISBN-10 ? : ? 0593652983
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  Is Donald Trump mad? Yes and no.
  It is easy

• Review of Playing Jazz in Socialist Vietnam | Francis R. Bradley
  9 September 2023

  BOOK REVIEW
  Reviewed by Francis R. Bradley (Pratt Institute)
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  Playing Jazz in Socialist Vietnam: Quyền Van Minh and Jazz in Hanoi by Stan BH. Minh Tan-Tangbau
  University Press of Mississippi 2021. 320 pp. (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4968-3633-5; (paper), ISBN 978-1-4968-3634-2
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  Stan BH Tan-Tangbau collaborated with saxophonist Quyền Vӑn Minh to write the first major history of jazz in Vietnam. Minh is the central figure in the book’s narrative and he writes (…)

• Review of Kirkwood’s, Endless Intervals: Cinema, Psychology, and Semiotechnics around 1900
  7 October 2023

  BOOK REVIEW
  Reviewed by Jeff S. Nagy (University of Michigan)
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  Endless Intervals: Cinema, Psychology, and Semiotechnics around 1900 by Jeffrey West Kirkwood University of Minnesota Press 2022. vii + 235 pp. (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5179-1253-6 (paper), ISBN 978-1-5179-1254-3
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  This isn’t your parents’ history of computing. It would have to be at least your great-grandparents’. Endless Intervals: Cinema, Psychology, and Semiotechnics around 1900 finds a prehistory for digital (…)

• Review of Goodman’s How the World Ran Out of Everything | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  12 July 2024, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond blanc][noir]BOOK REVIEWnoir]fond blanc]
  Review by M.R. Narayan Swamy __0__
  How the World Ran Out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain by Peter S Goodman
  Mariner Books New York/Boston Pages: viii + 406; Price: Rs 599
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  It is now politically fashionable in the US to blame China for all the economic ills the world’s richest country is facing. Yet it was the White House and the American monopoly capital that made Beijing what it is now – a global economic behemoth. (…)