Showing titles in South Asia

Kashmir, Gujarat, and the Punjab: The Ancient and Modern History of India’s Politically Divided States on the Border with Pakistan examines the various regions, the different civilizations that lived there, and what took place there over the last 5,000 years. You will learn about Kashmir, Gujarat, and the Punjab like never before.

The Maurya empire, which existed more than 2,000 years ago, was the mightiest civilization that India has ever known. It was more than one and a half times the size of modern-day India in geographical extent. The Maurya empire was established just after the death of Alexander the Great. Fear had prevented his troops from marching farther to invade the subcontinent, which became the fuel for India to reinvent itself as an indomitable mega-culture.

From adventure to indenture, martyrs to merchants, Partition to plantation, from Kashmir to Kerala, Japan to Jamaica and beyond, the many facets of the great migrations of India and the world are mapped in India Moving, the first book of its kind. To understand how millions of people have moved - from, to and within India - the book embarks on a journey laced with evidence, argument, and wit.

The British East India Company served as one of the key players in the formation of the British Empire. From its origins as a trading company struggling to keep up with its superior Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish competitors to its tenure as the ruling authority of the Indian subcontinent to its eventual hubristic downfall, the East India Company serves as a lens through which to explore the much larger economic and social forces that shaped the formation of a global British Empire.

British India ultimately covered some 54 percent of the landmass and 77 percent of the population. By the time the British began to contemplate a withdrawal from India, 565 princely states were officially recognized, in addition to thousands of zamindaris and jagirs, which were in effect feudal estates. Kashmir: The History and Legacy of the Indian Subcontinent’s Most Disputed Territory chronicles the remarkable history of the area and the influence it has had over the centuries.

There is no record of Marco Polo ever visiting the Andaman Islands, so his brief description of the islanders must have been drawn from a secondary source. They were, he wrote, “a most brutish and savage race, having heads, eyes, and teeth like those of dogs. They are very cruel, and kill and eat every foreigner whom they can lay their hands upon.”

Dr Kalam, who was India's 11th president and has been a scientist and a teacher, has written more than 20 books. Ranging from inspirational and spiritual thoughts, to autobiographical reflections, to his vision statements for a developed India, these works bear the imprint of a mind that is deeply reflective. For the first time, some of the most thoughtful, inspiring and educative of these writings have been compiled in one place in The Righteous Life.

Munoz provides new insight into Benazir Bhutto’s unprecedented rise and an unflinching, minute-by-minute narrative of the assassination itself. With impeccable research, Munoz also situates Bhutto in the decades-long history of U.S.-Pakistan relations and the emergence of global terrorism, pinpointing her death as the moment when those relations changed forever. The result is a gripping narrative of Pakistan’s turbulent political realities and the death of its leading politician.

The most famous speech that was never delivered, "Annihilation of Cast", by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, along with his paper Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development, combined to form one cohesive audiobook, the way Babasaheb envisioned it.

Join us on a discovery from the ancient origins to the present days of the most fascinating civilizations in Asia. Included in this amazing three-book collection are The History of China, History of India, and Japanese History. These civilizations all feature a history rich in culture, legends, characters, and mythology and remain some of the most interesting in the world. If you want to find out more about the history of China, Japan, and India, then start listening to this special three-books-in-one bundle now!

Everybody Loves a Good Drought is the established classic on rural poverty in India. Twenty years after publication, it remains unsurpassed in the scope and depth of reportage, providing an intimate view of the daily struggles of the poor and the efforts, often ludicrous, made to uplift them. An illuminating introduction accompanying this 20-anniversary edition reveals, alarmingly, how a large section of India continues to suffer in the name of development so that a small percentage may prosper.

There are not many Indian heroes whose lives have been as dramatic and adventurous as that of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. That, however, is an assessment of his life based on what is widely known about him. These often revolve around his resignation from the Indian Civil Service, joining the freedom movement, to be exiled twice for over seven years, throwing a challenge to the Gandhian leadership in the Congress, taking up an extremist position against the British Raj, evading the famed intelligence network to travel to Europe and then to Southeast Asia.

This shocking exposé of a true-life Orwellian plot of nightmarish proportions reveals the chilling events of November 1984 following Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the cover-up by the Indian government. For more than three days, armed mobs systematically butchered, torched and raped members of the Sikh community in Delhi and other places, unchecked. The sheer scale of the killings exceeded the combined civilian death tolls of other conflicts such as Tiananmen Square and 9/11.

This is a behind-the-scenes look at the spectacular collapse of some of the biggest names in India Inc. The book reveals the real reasons behind the non-payment of loans of over Rs nine lakh crore to the banks by behemoths like Reliance Communications, Videocon, IL&FS and Essay Steel, among others. The authors analyze how funds were illegally diverted from some of the bankrupt companies and why auditors as well as bankers went into sleep mode.

The British East India Company served as one of the key players in the formation of the British Empire. From its origins as a trading company struggling to keep up with its superior Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish competitors to its tenure as the ruling authority of the Indian subcontinent to its eventual hubristic downfall, the East India Company serves as a lens through which to explore the much larger economic and social forces that shaped the formation of a global British Empire.

Shahan Mufti’s family history, which he can trace back 1,400 years to the inner circle of the prophet Muhammad, offers an enlightened perspective on the mystifying history of Pakistan. Mufti uses the stories of his ancestors, many of whom served as judges and jurists in Muslim sharia courts of South Asia for many centuries, to reveal the deepest roots - real and imagined - of Islamic civilization in Pakistan.

The Gurkha Regiment is without question one of the most storied regiments of the British Army. Somewhat like the French Foreign Legion, however, it has traditionally been a regiment of adventurers and soldiers of fortune, with the simple difference that the Gurkhas represent only a minor ethnicity of the wider Nepalese population, distinguished by a long and august martial tradition. Traditionally, the officer corps of the various Gurkha regiments have been drawn from the regular ranks of the British Army, with fluency in Nepali a basic requirement.

Second only to China in the magnitude of its economic miracle and second to none in its potential to shape the new century, India is fast undergoing one of the most momentous transformations the world has ever seen. In this dazzlingly panoramic book, Patrick French chronicles that epic change, telling human stories to explain a larger national narrative. Melding on-the-ground reports with a deep knowledge of history, French exposes the cultural foundations of India’s political, economic and social complexities.

My Journey: Transforming Dreams into Actions is the life story of India's 11th President, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, who started off as an insignificant little boy Rameswaram, but ended up becoming the president of the country, besides being a brilliant scientist as well. The book portrays the struggle that Dr. Kalam had to endure, as he climbed the ladder of success in life.

Mohenjo-daro was the largest city of the Indus Valley civilization, one of the most advanced civilizations ever to have existed, and the most ancient prehistoric urban site on the Indian subcontinent. It was a metropolis of great cultural, economic, and political importance that dates from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE. Although it flourished between approximately 2500 and 1500 BCE, the city had longer-lasting influences on the urbanization of the Indian subcontinent for centuries after its abandonment.