Book Review

Articles

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

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

• Rishi Sunak: The Success Story of a Minority in Britain | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  25 February 2023, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
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  Rishi Sunak: The Rise
  by Michael Ashcroft
  Hachette India; Pages: 357; Price: Rs 699
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  If Britain was engulfed by a majoritarian ideology, Rishi Sunak would have never become the Prime Minister.
  It goes to the credit of Britain’s democracy that a young man born to Indian immigrants (a Hindu at that) defeated veterans in an overwhelmingly white constituency and finally moved into 10 Downing Street. All that mattered to the Conservatives and British voters (…)

• Mapping India’s Sufi World — With a New Twist | M R Narayan Swamy
  16 December 2022, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
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  In Search of the Divine:
  Living Histories of Sufism in India
  by Rana Safvi
  Hachette India
  Pages: 415; Price: Rs 599 ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9393701113
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  Orthodox Muslims may look down upon Sufism as blasphemy but writer-scholar Rana Safvi asserts that Prophet Muhammud was the first Sufi and the first link of all Sufi orders or silsilas.
  In a claim that could raise the hackles of many Muslims, Safvi says that it is from the Prophet’s own behaviour that Sufis (…)

• Book Review: Raza on Kenny’s Populism and Patronage
  2 December 2022

  Reviewed by Aamir Raza
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  Populism and Patronage: Why Populist win Elections in India, Asia, and Beyond
  by Paul D. Kenny
  Oxford University Press 2017 Pages 234 Price Rs 545
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  Populism has been a recurrent feature of Global politics since last century. Despite having hostile views about liberal democratic institutions, Populist party across the world have gained astonishing electoral success. Although Populism can persist across the ideological spectrum, Populist threats (…)

• When Nationalists Backed ‘Made in India’ | M R Narayan Swamy
  17 December 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
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  Branded in History: Fresh Marketing Lessons from Vintage Brands
  by Ramya Ramamurthy
  Hachette India
  Pages: 309; Price: Rs 499
  ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9388322681 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9388322683
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  Did you know that Sunlight soap is as old as the Indian National Congress? The Lever Brothers in the UK made the first ‘vegetarian soap’ by combining vegetable or palm oil with glycerine to create Sunlight in 1885. After all, Indians were averse to imported soaps with animal (…)

• Risks and Resilience in the Era of Climate Change | K N Ninan
  20 May 2023

  BOOK REVIEW
  by K N Ninan *
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  Risk and Resilience in the Era of Climate Change by Vinod Thomas
  Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore 2023. xxiii + 195p. US$ 27.99 ISBN 978-981-19-8620-8 ISBN 978-981-19-8621-5 (eBook) __0__
  At no time in human history has mankind faced multiple environmental challenges as the current generation such as unprecedented levels of climate change, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, pollution, and land degradation. While releasing the synthesis (…)

• Frens-String on Chastain and Lorek, ’Itineraries of Expertise: Science, Technology, and the Environment in Latin America
  12 June 2021

  Reviewer: Joshua Frens-String
  Andra B. Chastain, Timothy Lorek, eds. Itineraries of Expertise: Science, Technology, and the Environment in Latin America (INTERSECTIONS: Histories of Environment). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020. 366 pp. $40.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8229-4596-3.
  What events and historical processes should be considered a part of Latin America’s Cold War experience? Who were the Latin American Cold War’s principal protagonists? How did a decades-long (…)

• 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, (…)

• Alastair Hemmens ’The Critique of Work in Modern French Thought’ reviewed by Ross Sparkes
  8 May 2021

  THE CRITIQUE OF WORK IN MODERN FRENCH THOUGHT: From Charles Fourier to Guy Debord by Alastair Hemmens
  Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2019. 226 pp. £44.99 pb Hardcover ISBN 978-3-030-12585-1 Softcover ISBN 978-3-030-12588-2 eBook ISBN 978-3-030-12586-8 DOI 10.1007/978-3-030-12586-8
  Reviewed by Ross Sparkes
  Under capitalism, life is work and work is life. To imagine a world beyond it is sheer blasphemy. Yet, a growing number of titles over the past decade have begun to do just that. They (…)

• Will Yogi Adityanath get to rule India? | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  21 January 2022, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
  Yogi Adityanath: Religion, Politics and Power - The Untold Story
  by Sharat Pradhan and Atul Chandra
  Penguin Random House
  288 Pages
  Nov/2021
  ISBN: 9780143442431
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  Will Yogi Adityanath be the Prime Minister of India one day? Does the monk-turned-Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, qualify for the coveted job? If journalists Sharat Pradhan and Atul Chandra are to be believed, this could become a possibility; in any case, Adityanath, (…)