India: A History

Buy India: A History here, one of 750 Football History books offered for sale at discount prices here in the history books section at R bookshop. There are currently 73104 history books in our history books section, and over 1,000,000 books listed in our book store. We greatly appreciate your patronage at R bookshop and look forward to offering you a large selection of great books at discount prices now and in the future. Thank you for shopping at R Bookshop!

You Are Here: Home > History Books > Football History > Item 39

	India: A History
	by John Keay Sales Rank: 89905	$5.00 At Amazon on 6-19-2008.

*Features* Cover Type: Paperback with 608 pages Published by: Grove Press May 10, 2001 Written in: English ISBN 10 Number: 0802137970 ISBN 13 Number: 978-0802137975 Book Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches Weighs: 2 pounds *Product Review* The history of what is now India stretches back thousands of years, further than that of nearly any other region on earth. Yet, observes historian John Keay, most historical work on India concentrates on the period after the arrival of Europeans, with predictable biases, distortions, and misapprehensions. One, for example, is the tendency to locate the source of social conflict in India's many religions--to which Keay retorts, "Historically, it was Europe, not India, which consistently made religion grounds for war." Taking the longest possible view, Keay surveys what is both provable and invented in the historical record. His narrative begins in 3000 B.C., with the complex, and little-understood, Harappan period, a time of state formation and the development of agriculture and trade networks. This period coincides with the arrival of Indo-European invaders, the so-called Aryans, whose name, of course, has been put to terrible use at many points since. Keay traces the growth of subsequent states and kingdoms throughout antiquity and the medieval period, suggesting that the lack of unified government made the job of the European conquerors somewhat easier--but by no means inevitable. He continues to the modern day, his narrative ending with Indian-Pakistani conflicts in 1998. Fluently told and well documented, Keay's narrative history is of much value to students and general readers with an interest in India's past and present. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. *From Publishers Weekly* Sweeping from the ancient brick cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, built in the Indus Valley around 2000 B.C., to modern India's urban middle class armed with computers and cell phones, this erudite, panoramic history captures the flow of Indian civilization. No apologist for Britannia's rule, British historian Keay (Into India, etc.) gives the lie to comforting fantasies of the British Raj as the benevolently run "Jewel in the Crown." For most Indians, "Pax Britannica meant mainly 'Tax Britannica,'" he writes. Nor was British-ruled India peaceful, he adds, because India became a launch pad for British wars against Indonesia, Nepal and Burma, for the invasion of Afghanistan and the quashing of native revolts--often with the coerced participation of Indian troops. Finally, the Raj was "Axe Britannica," beginning the extensive deforestation of the subcontinent and the systematic suppression of its rural economy. Keay challenges much conventional scholarship in a dispassionate chronicle based largely on a fresh look at primary sources. For instance, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, enthroned in 268 B.C., is revered because he preached tolerance and renounced armed violence, yet Keay notes that, contrary to popular opinion, Ashoka never specifically abjured warfare nor did he disband his army. Keay concludes this illustrated history by astutely surveying India's erratic progress in the half-century since independence, marked by communal violence, resurgence of regional interests and the rise of Hindu nationalism. This careful study serves up a banquet for connoisseurs and serious students of India. (Mar.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. *Reader Reviews* India has five thousand years of history that we have enough evidence to write about. Any book that can simply be coherent and readable while covering so much ground is an achievement. John Keay's "India: A History" is more than that, though; it is superbly-written and powerfully narrated. Keay notes in the introduction that he has deliberately avoided focusing more on recent history than on ancient: "a history which reserves half its narrative for the 19th and 20th centuries may seem more relevant, but it can scarcely do justice to India's extraordinary antiquity." Naturally the availability of more historical sources does increase the attention paid to recent events, but still the Raj does not appear till nearly three quarters of the way through, and the 20th century and the real start of the struggle for independence is close to the end of the book. The result is a long, thoughtful and detailed telling of many of the dynasties and civilization that flourished in India -- though, as Keay also says in the introduction, only the highlights are mentioned, since "with perhaps twenty to forty dynasties co-existing within the subcontinent at any one time, it would be [. . .] sado-masochism [to include them all]". So even at this extra level of detail there has been substantial editing. And there could have been more; the book's only fault is that Keay mentions just too many of the endless dynastic dramas. The essence of a one-volume history is selective editing, and the book could have been shorter and a little less dry in places. However, the picture of India that emerges is deep, complex and fascinating, from the earliest Harappan archaeological relics through to the Gandhis. The Raj is of course particularly interesting: although technologically and industrially the British clearly surpassed them greatly at the time of the Raj, some of the diplomatic exchanges that Keay retails show the Indians as being more sophisticated, more civilized, and in many ways just smarter than the British. It was inevitable that the yoke would be thrown off; the only question was what India would be able to do with its independence. Keay's prose is also a great pleasure; he has a wonderfully dry sense of humour, and he conveys exciting events with panache but also with precision and clarity. Recommended. Comment \| \| (Report this) Back To Top
India: A History Available from Amazon Price: $5.00 Updated on 6-19-2008.

NOTICE: All prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.

We offer India: A History and other related Football History Books here at Rbookshop.com. To view more books about Football History please use the previous and next buttons near the top of this page.