Book Review

Articles

• Essential and Fascinating Facts about Indian Elections | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  17 May 2024, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
  __0__
  Chambers Book of Indian Election Facts
  by Kingshuk Chatterjee and Surbek Biswas
  Hachette India 2024 Pages: xii + 563; Price: Rs 699 PB ISBN : 9789357318389
  __0__
  An estimated 2.8 million of the 80 million potential women voters could not make it to the electoral rolls when India conducted its first general election after independence. The reason? These women, mostly in northern India, wished to register themselves as ‘the (…)

• China’s Challenge to America | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  13 May 2023, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
  by M.R. Narayan Swamy
  __0__
  Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy
  by Kishore Mahbubani
  PublicAffairs, New York Pages: 312; Price: Rs 699 ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1541768132 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1541768130
  __0__
  Is China’s tremendous economic growth a threat to the United States? Is Beijing trying to dethrone Washington as the world’s numero uno? Is the Communist Party of China trying to destabilize American and Western values? Will China’s aggressive onward (…)

• Kinzley’s Review of Greene, J. Megan, Building a Nation at War
  25 November 2023

  BOOK REVIEW
  Reviewed by Judd Kinzley (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
  __0__
  Building a Nation at War: Transnational Knowledge Networks and the Development of China during and after World War II
  by J. Megan Greene
  (Harvard East Asian Monographs) Harvard University Asia Center 2022. xiv + 319 pp. ISBN 978-0-674-27831-8 https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674278318
  __0__
  During the Anti-Japanese War (1937-45), Nationalist Party planners in China drew up ambitious (…)

• Review of Ali, Saleem H., Soil to Foil: Aluminum and the Quest for Industrial Sustainability | Andrew Perchard
  8 March 2025

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
  Soil to Foil: Aluminum and the Quest for Industrial Sustainability
  by Saleem H. Ali
  Columbia University Press
  2023. 320 pp.
  (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-20448-4
  __0__
  Reviewed by Andrew Perchard (University of Otago)
  Saleem Ali takes aluminum as the subject of his book, Soil to Foil. Ali

• A Gripping Saga of India
  17 May 2025, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
  __0__
  The Scam That Shook a Nation: The Nagarwala Scandal
  by Prakash Patra, Rasheed Kidwai
  HarperCollins India
  Pages: xi + 263; Price: Rs 399
  __0__
  It is a story that has been told, literally, a million times. But when Prakash Patra and Rahseed Kidwai, two extremely capable journalists, recap the story with their penchant for thorough research, it becomes a book you just cannot put down.
  The sensational incident which the book (…)

• Rabindranath Tagore’s Spiritual Journeys | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  19 January 2024, by M R Narayan Swamy

  REVIEW __0__
  Rabindranath Tagore: Among Saints Bipul Kumar Gangopadhyay
  Translators: Swaraj Kumar Chakrabarti and Dr Amitava Sanyal
  Vitasta 163pages; Price: Rs 395 ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 8119670892 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8119670895
  __0__
  To the world at large, Rabindranath Tagore is an icon in literature and philosophy, a man deeply committed to the idea of India, a deserving Nobel laureate, and a rarity among geniuses who wrote the national anthem of not one but two countries. Not much is (…)

• Indian History or Propaganda? | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  11 March 2023, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
  __0__
  Don’t Forward That Text! Separating Myths from History on Social Media
  by Amit Schandillia
  HarperCollins India Pages: 303 Price: Rs 399
  So, many Hindu temples did Tipu Sultan destroy?
  Many, most might answer. Innumerable, Hindu radicals are bound to assert. History communicator Amit Schandilia’s meticulous research leads to findings that are bound to shock everyone: those who view the Muslim king positively and those who hate him.
  At the height of the (…)

• Oh! Orundhuti, Kamon Acho | Papri Sen Sri Raman
  25 October 2025, by Papri Sen Sri Raman

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
  __0__
  Mother Mary Comes To Me
  by Arundhati Roy
  Publisher: Penguin Random-House, India
  374 pages
  Price: Rs 899
  __0__
  Very authoritative reviews of Mother Mary Comes to Me have been published in the first two months of the book

• Review of K Saradamoni’s ’In Search of Answers: A Memoir’ I B Madhavan
  30 September 2023, by B. Madhavan

  Book Review
  by B Madhavan
  __0__
  In Search of Answers: A Memoir by K Saradamoni
  Tulika Books August 2023 245 Pages ISBN : 978-81-958394-0-7
  __0__
  Studying in the university, one meets students who are unsure where the discipline of economics would take them. Many see it as a degree that would land them high-paying jobs in consultancies and other corporate firms.
  Fortunately, there are still a lot of people who are disillusioned by the model-building part of their courses and (…)

• Maxson on Cooley, ’The Perfection of Nature: Animals, Breeding, and Race in the Renaissance’
  22 June 2024