India + Indian history

Book Reviews

• Zahiruddin Babur: The Baburnama
  Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor
• Susan Bayly: Caste, Society and Politics in India*
  From the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age
• Roberto Calasso: Ka**
  - a superb synthesis of Hindu mythology
• K.N. Chaudhuri: Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean*
  An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750
• Richard G. Fox: Gandhian Utopia: Experiments with Culture
  - did Gandhi matter? can individuals change history?
• Rob Jenkins: Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India
  - the persistence of liberal economic reform in the 1990s
• D.N. Jha: The Myth of the Holy Cow
  - the origins of cow veneration and vegetarianism in India
• John Keay: The Great Arc
  The Dramatic Tale of How India Was Mapped and Everest Was Named
• Rudyard Kipling: Kipling Stories
  Twenty-eight Exciting Tales by the Master Storyteller
• James W. Laine: Shivaji
  Hindu King in Islamic India
• Oliver Mendelsohn, Marika Vicziany: The Untouchables
  Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India
• Pankaj Mishra: An End to Suffering
  The Buddha in the World
• R.K. Narayan: The Mahabharata; The Ramayana
  - an accessible English abridgment
• Andrew Robinson: The Indus
  - a mysterious "lost" civilisation
• Tansen Sen: Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade
  The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600-1400
• Khushwant Singh: Train to Pakistan*
  - one of the classic novels of Partition
• Romila Thapar: Early India
  From the Origins to AD 1300
• Valmik Thapar: Land of the Tiger
  A Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent
• David Zurick, P.P. Karan: Himalaya
  Life on the Edge of the World

See also: China | Pakistan | Southeast Asia

In 1998 I spent three weeks in India, visiting Maharashtra and Rajasthan as part of a community leadership program, and would like to go back and see more.