India Exposed: The Subcontinent A-Z [Hardcover]

Clive Limpkin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2009

For an affordable price, India is exposed in Clive Limpkin's beautiful pictures and insightful mini-essays. Limpkin traveled extensively throughout India, and the photographic legacy of his journeys is impressively far-reaching, both in geographic scope and subject. From 'Elephants' to 'Cremation', "India Exposed" examines natural life, culture, and regions in India. It is a comprehensive photographic tribute of the second-largest nation in the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following a visit, retired photojournalist Limpkin was so taken with India that he spent three years "crisscrossing the subcontinent, seeing the best and enough of the worst." This is his roundup, a know-it-all's travelogue with bright, crisp photographs, conversational anecdotes, rich first-hand accounts, and guide-book style stats. Limpkin moves alphabetically through those things that left the greatest impression on him, providing idiosyncratic commentary, and is at his best when exposing the comic side of this complicated nation: his entry on "Overload," for example, beautifully and wryly captures the daily reality of mopeds stacked high with people and goods, workers loading sacks of goods on their shoulders and head, and overflowing trains snaking through the countryside. Less impressive are short-sighted entries on everything from British rule and independence (with no mention of Gandhi) to Hinduism (dismissing the way for life 800 million-plus adherents in two broad sentences) to marriages (focusing on the "repellent practice" of dowries) to some of India's most tragic and complex contemporary problems: underage labor, poverty, opposition of women, sustaining the holy city of Varansi. For all the volume's beauty and some genuinely enjoyable entries, readers are likely to find Limpkin's account far more subjective-and disagreeable-than its author seems to realize.
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About the Author

Clive Limpkin is a photojournalist who spent thirty five years in Fleet Street as a staff photographer with the Daily Express, Sketch, The Sun and Daily Mail. In 1972, his book, The Battle of Bogside (Penguin), which pictures three years of fighting in Northern Ireland, won the Robert Capa Gold Medal from Life magazine for "superlative photography requiring exceptional courage and enterprise abroad." He was also a feature writer before becoming Travel Editor at A La Carte magazine. Since leaving Fleet Street, he has concentrated on travel photography and writing.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Abbeville Press (November 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789209942
• ISBN-13: 978-0789209948
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 8.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #594,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Travel My Way..., October 13, 2009

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KayLA (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: India Exposed: The Subcontinent A-Z (Hardcover)

Mr. Limpkin articulated exactly how I felt after returning from my first trip to India 2 weeks ago! He captured the essence through his explanations and photos of a complex nation that is hard to define. The colorful cultures and warmth of the people were reflected in his photos. We are used to our own "personal space", but traveling in India, that notion is non-existent when just driving up to an intersection amongst the cows, buses, motor scooters, trucks, cars, camels, carts, etc., or in a marketplace.... But then, he captures other wondrous sights that makes one curious to return. I recommend this book for anyone who has already been to India or is a "wanna be" traveler to India.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to the diversity of the Indian Subcontinent, March 25, 2011

By 

Old Saratoga Books "The Book Trout" (Upstate New York, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: India Exposed: The Subcontinent A-Z (Hardcover)

The Indian Subcontinent can be a blur of images and remembered tidbits to most outsiders, covering as it does, so many square miles, cultures, languages and religions within its borders. Limpkin's format of short essays with color photos provides the reader with an easy and appealing way to absorb information about wildlife, traditional dress, the Raj and some very complicated aspects of Indian society. The book designers wisely provide endpaper maps of India highlighted with cities and villages shown in the photos for quick reference.

As a stand-alone photoessay, "India Exposed" also offers views of wildlife and social situations that the ordinary visitor to India would never glimpse, such as the lone janitors who guard Chettinar mansions in Tamil Nadu, a rooftop view of the dhobi family laundries in Mumbai, or the wary archer fisherman in the backwaters of Kerala.

While Limpkin is clearly in love with the Indian people, he is not shy about peppering his essays with commentary about the ills of underage labor, sex and caste discrimination, or government health funding. This book is a colorful introduction to contemporary India and would be a welcome addition to the library of any reader interested in travel, photography, current events or social history. Certainly, anyone considering a trip to India in the near future should consult this book as a way of orienting themselves to the geography and framework of this intriguing, multi-faceted land.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tasty, November 26, 2009

By 

Theseus "theseus" (US of A) - See all my reviews

This review is from: India Exposed: The Subcontinent A-Z (Hardcover)

Limpkin's second book is a superb exploration of and explication into current Indian culture.

Abbeville is to be commended for not making this an 8 pound monster "coffee table book." The size of this 216 page, square book encourages browsing and the handy format matches the intimacy of Limpkin's photography. And yet it is a handsome production: cloth over boards on heavy paper with decorated endpapers

I find the A-Z organizational structure commendable. It encourages "return trips" into the book. And while some of the entries are expected: Caste System, Fishing, Saris, Textiles, Crocodiles, others are not -- Barbers, Brick Making, Underage Labor, Safety Standards, and Army.