Mainstream WeeklyBOOK REVIEW
__0__
The Struggle Within: A Memoir of the Emergency
by Ashok Chakravarti
HarperCollins India
July 2021
221 Pages; Price: Rs 399
ISBN-10 : 9354227473 __0__
A young man jettisons his dream to do PhD in Oxford and returns to India in the summer of 1973 filled with Marxist enthusiasm to bring a revolution in the country. Although Indira Gandhi was hailed as a Durga only two years earlier after breaking up Pakistan, a failing economy had sparked unrest all (…)
Home > Keywords > Topics > Book Review
Book Review
Articles
-
Emergency Transforms a Revolutionary | M R Narayan Swamy
3 December 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy -
Mughal Kings who Promoted Sanskrit, Hindu Epics | M.R. Narayan Swamy
12 August 2023, by M R Narayan SwamyBOOK REVIEW
__0__
Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court
by Audrey Truschke
Penguin Books Mar/2016 Pages: xiv + 362; Price: Rs 450 ISBN: 9780143428909
__0__
It is not without reason that Emperor Akbar (who ruled from 1556 to 1605) was always described as Akbar the Great – till Hindutva ideologues decided that popular admiration for him should go and he must be seen as another Muslim king who Hindu-majority India would have probably preferred to do without. (…) -
Book Review of Anand Teltumbde, The Caste Con Census | Srinivasulu Karli
24 January, by Karli Srinivasulu[fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
__0__
The Caste Con Census
by Anand Teltumbde
Navayana Publishing, New Delhi
2025
__0__
Reviewed by Srinivasulu Karli
There is a strong association made out in the existing discourse on caste in which caste data collected through the census is shown to be critical to the pursuance of social justice politics. This, of course, is sharply articulated by Rahul Gandhi with the slogan of ’jitni abadi, utna haq’ (rights proportionate to one -
Credible Fantasies | T Vijeyendra
15 July 2023T Vijayendra has just published a new book of short stories with a title, ‘Credible Fantasies’. The blurb reads:
‘The central idea of the fantasies presented here is to imagine a future for my young friends with ‘Green Jobs’, that is, jobs that help in restoring ecology and creating equity among humans. It is a very difficult proposition under the present circumstances and hence I refer to them as ‘fantasies’.
‘However, conditions are changing fast and soon it will be possible for (…) -
Reporting at its Courageous Best | M.R. Narayan Swamy
21 October 2022, by M R Narayan SwamyReview by M.R. Narayan Swamy
__0__ Bullets and Bylines: From the Frontlines of Kabul, Delhi, Damascus and Beyond by Shyam Bhatia
Speaking Tiger Pages: 249; Price: Rs 599 ISBN-10 : 1720226733 ISBN-13 : 978-1720226734
__0__
Shyam Bhatia got out of two tense situations because of Bollywood. The India-born Bhatia was walking in Baghdad towards the ousted Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace when he saw 40 to 50 Iraqis shouting hoarse at an American soldier on a US Army Humvee. (…) -
Review of Lanier’s Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts . . . | Gond & Chandravanshi
29 March 2025[fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
__0__
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier
Henry Holt and Company 2018, 160 pages, ?3,230
__0__
Reviewed by Arun Kumar Gond, Ranjan Kumar Chandravanshi
This book highlights the importance of avoiding social media. Author Jaron Lanier, a tech expert, critiques big tech and their exploitative practices. He explains how social media harms freedom, real-life interactions, and productivity while (…) -
Review of Becker & other’s Transnational Communism across the Americas | Thomas Field
24 February 2024[fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
__0__
Transnational Communism across the Americas by Marc Becker, Margaret Power, Tony Wood, and Jacob A. Zumoff
University of Illinois Press 2023. 288 pp. (cloth), ISBN 978-0-252-04522-6 (paper), ISBN 978-0-252-08736-3
__0__
Despite its title, which hints at an expansive pretense, Transnational Communism across the Americas succeeds in a focused goal: better understanding the role of orthodox, Moscow-backed Communism in Latin America (…) -
Saha on Guha’s The Curious Trajectory of Caste in West Bengal Politics
19 November 2022Book Review by Soumya Saha __0__
The Curious Trajectory of Caste in West Bengal Politics: Chronicling Continuity and Change by Ayan Guha
Leiden/Boston: Brill 2022 Price: €145.00 309 pages Hardback-ISBN: 978-90-04-51181-1 E-Book -ISBN: 978-90-04-51456-0
__0__
Since the demise of the Left Front government in West Bengal, scholarly interest in the changing political dynamics in the state, particularly in the political role of caste has significantly increased (Chandra et. al, 2016; (…) -
Abou-Nemeh’s Review of Sandrine Parageau’s The Paradoxes of Ignorance in Early Modern England and France
19 January 2024BOOK REVIEW
by Catherine Abou-Nemeh (Victoria University of Wellington)
__0__
The Paradoxes of Ignorance in Early Modern England and France. by Sandrine Parageau
Stanford: Stanford University Press 2023. viii + 254 pp. (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5036-3256-1 (paper), ISBN 978-1-5036-3531-9
__0__
What role did ignorance play in René Descartes’s philosophy and the experimental philosophy of the Royal Society of London? How did enduring Christian anxieties about the pursuit of ignorance (…) -
Is Our Democracy Dying? | Papri Sri Raman
13 August 2022, by Papri Sen Sri RamanBOOK REVIEW
__0__
The Silent Coup: A History of India’s Deep State by Josy Joseph
Context-Westland 2021 Rs 454 ISBN-10 : 9390679532 ISBN-13 : 978-9390679539
__0__
I WAS TALKING to a journalist friend across a 5G spectrum 2000 km away, asking her to pick up the July issue of the Caravan magazine that features the Rise and Fall of the NIA. She said, ‘I am really scared. Fall does not mean it does not exist’.
The subject had come up in the context of an interview she had (…)