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  • Scholarly Inauguration Of New Genre Of Biography | Vijay Kumar
    26 July 2024, by Vijay Kumar

    [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEW[/blanc][/fond noir]
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    Of Law And Life by Upendra Baxi
    in conversation with Arvind Narrain, Lawrence Liang, Sitharamam Kakarala, Sruti Chaganti
    Orient BlackSwan 2024 Pages 582 | Price Rs.2300/-
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    The Book: OF LAW AND LIFE: Upendra Baxi in conversation with Arvind Narrain, Lawrence Liang, Sitharamam Kakarala, Sruti Chaganti is a unique book. It has inaugurated radically new genre which straddles rich and varied forms. It is certainly not an (…)

  • The lessons from Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday misery | M.R. Narayan Swamy
    26 July 2024, by M R Narayan Swamy

    [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEW[/blanc][/fond noir] __0__
    Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday Massacre: Lessons for the International Community
    by Rohan Gunaratna
    Penguin Books Pages: lxxvi + 238 Price: Singapore$ 28.90 __0__
    It was sheer incompetence at the highest level of governance that helped the Islamic State to devastate Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday in 2019, slaughtering 275 people and injuring almost 600. The suicide bombings were the worst terrorist onslaught by the IS outside the Iraqi (…)

  • Review of Russian Revolution and the Indian Freedom Struggle Edited by Jaya Mehta | K.S. Chalam
    3 August 2024

    [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEW[/blanc][/fond noir]
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    Russian Revolution and the Indian Freedom Struggle Conceptualization: Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, Editor: Jaya Mehta Aakar Books, Delhi
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    Twenty First century India view the images of struggles that suit its history, economic structure and social base to get rid of an exploitative system that is more entrenched today than what was imagined under Imperialism during the last century. In fact, the Freedom movement in India had (…)

  • Aruna Roy’s memoir reminds us as much of some great achievements as of the bigger challenges ahead | Bharat Dogra
    3 August 2024, by Bharat Dogra

    [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEW[/blanc][/fond noir]
    Aruna Roy’s memoir published by HarperCollins under the title ‘The Personal is Political –An Activist’s Memoir’ has attracted a lot of attention within a short time, and for good reason. A part of the reason relates to what Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze say in their comment on the book, “Aruna Roy reflects on a life of deep engagement, weaving the personal and the political. A great inspiration.”
    For most people Aruna Roy is a highly (…)

  • 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 REVIEW[/blanc][/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 (…)

  • When Two Ancient Cultures Fall In Love | M.R. Narayan Swamy
    17 August 2024, by M R Narayan Swamy

    [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEW[/blanc][/fond noir]
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    Rebels, Traitors, Peacemakers: The Stories of Love and Conflict in Indian-Chinese Relationships
    by Shivaji Das, Yolanda Yu
    Penguin Books Pages: xv + 214 ISBN-10 : 9815127144 ISBN-13 : 978-9815127140
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    What happens when the lives of people from two great civilizations collide?
    It could probably result in an ugly and perhaps bloody encounter if they met on the disputed Sino-Indian frontier. On the contrary, love (…)

  • Sarah Foss. Review of Nolan, Rachel, Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoptions in Guatemala
    24 August 2024

    [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEW[/blanc][/fond noir]
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    Rachel Nolan. Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoptions in Guatemala. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2024. 309 pp. (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-27035-0.
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    Reviewed by Sarah Foss (Oklahoma State University)
    Every so often, we hear a statistic that seems improbable at best, unfathomable, even, given the reality we think we know. Such a moment occurs in the opening pages of Rachel Nolan’s book, Until I (…)

  • How Western Generosity Helped Stalin Crush Hitler | M.R. Narayan Swamy
    24 August 2024, by M R Narayan Swamy

    [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEW[/blanc][/fond noir]
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    The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance That Won the War by Giles Milton
    John Murray (Hachette India) May 2024 Pages: ix + 372; Price: Rs 999 ISBN: 978-1529398519
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    There can be no doubt that steely and raw courage proved the tripping point in the beleaguered Soviet Union’s near impossible military triumph over Germany in World War II. At a time when it was widely feared that Hitler would overrun Moscow after having (…)

  • Thom Loyd. Review of Iandolo, Alessandro, Arrested Development: The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, 1955–1968
    31 August 2024

    [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEW[/blanc][/fond noir]
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    Arrested Development: The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, 1955–1968
    by Alessandro Iandolo
    Cornell University Press 2022. xv + 287 pp. (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5017-6443-1.
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    Reviewed by Thom Loyd (Augusta University)
    In his 1955 novel, Flamingo Feather, the Afrikaner writer Laurens van der Post painted a sinister picture of Soviet influence in Africa, one in which the Soviet Union used whatever underhand means it (…)

  • For Others’ Sins, Ordinary Afghans Suffer | M.R. Narayan Swamy
    31 August 2024, by M R Narayan Swamy

    [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEW[/blanc][/fond noir]
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    Return of the Taliban: State, Society and Terror
    by Apratim Mukarji
    Vitasta Publishing Pvt.Ltd 2023, Pages: lii + 292 ISBN-10 8119670035 ISBN-13 978-8119670031
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    With very little hope that the Taliban may become a responsive administration, one does not know when millions of Afghans can even dream of a better tomorrow.
    This is the price ordinary Afghan men, women and children are today paying for the needless (…)