India: A History [Paperback]

John Keay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0802137970 | ISBN-13: 978-0802137975

John Keay's India: A History is a probing and provocative chronicle of five thousand years of South Asian history, from the first Harrapan settlements on the banks of the Indus River to the recent nuclear-arms race. In a tour de force of narrative history, Keay blends together insights from a variety of scholarly fields and weaves them together to chart the evolution of the rich tapestry of cultures, religions, and peoples that makes up the modern nations of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Authoritative and eminently readable, India: A History is a compelling epic portrait of one of the world's oldest and most richly diverse civilizations.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com 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 bad 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.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 578 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (May 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802137970
• ISBN-13: 978-0802137975
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #147,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Panoramic and well-written, July 21, 2003

By 

Mike Christie (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: India: A History (Paperback)

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 20 to 40 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.

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb General History of India, August 11, 2000

By 

Paul V Caetano - See all my reviews

This review is from: India: A History (Hardcover)

This book is by far the best general history of India which I have found(I can only speak of English texts). Keay covers the full sweep of Indian history without spending two thirds of the book on the last two hundred years. Most other Indian historis focus too much on the colonial era. Moreover, when they describe pre-colonial times they mainly talk about the great "highpoints" such as the the Mauryan empire, the Gupta empire and the Great Moguls. Yet these highpoints only lasted for a small portion of the timeline of Indian history and usually left large portions of the subcontinent outside their way. The book has a superb graph which illustrates this point.

Keay explicits states that he wants to avoid the common practice of treating Indian history as different. Most other histories deemphasize chronology and emphasize religion and society (especially the caste system). They almost treat India as timeless. While religion and society are very important topics, I found it very refreshing to read Keay's book with its greater emphasis on chronology. I strongly feel that he found a much better balance than I read in other popular histories of India.

Keay expertly strings together the various threads of India's history. This is no easy task given what at times is a plethora of dynasties and rulers. He was able to strike a good balance in giving a lot of information, without making the text tedious. "India: A History" is a book of which I have already reread portions, and I am sure I will consult it many times in the future.

53 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Thorough but dry and overly detailed, June 3, 2002

By 

J. N. Mohlman (Barrington, RI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: India: A History (Paperback)

Before I commence with my review I feel I should state that my knowledge of the history of the Indian sub-continent was limited, at best, prior the reading this book. However, I am well versed in history in general, and I believe that my readings on other topics have provided me with a valuable frame of reference for my review of Keay's "India: A History".

Without a doubt, Keay set himself a daunting task; "India" the nation-state is the end result of colonial policy and modern politics and does not in and of itself represent the extent of Indian culture or the breadth of its geography. In effect, Keay undertook a task equivalent to writing a history of pre-European North America in one volume. One item that will stay with me from this work is just how fractured and variegated the Indian Sub-Continent's people are. Unfortunately, even after acknowledging the difficulty of the task he set for himself, I am afraid that the author fell short.

It certainly wasn't for lack of effort or detailed historical research. Quite the contrary, in fact; the reader is pummeled page after page with a barrage of dynasties and kingdoms, that to the non-expert seem to blur into one. While politics are undeniably critical to any history, Keay all to often ignored cultural and religious developments while examining political ones in excruciating detail. Of particular note was the scant attention he paid to the evolution of Hinduism. I realize that this is supposed to be a broad overview, but considering the role Hinduism has played in India's development, I feel an examination of it would have been worth a chapter, at least.

The one area where I felt Keay got things right was the Indian drive for independence from the British. From about 1850 on, he seems to develop a real passion for the material and injects some vibrancy into what had been a very dry narrative to that point. While some reviewers have complained of a pro-British bias, I found the writing to be very well balanced, and if anything, nominally pro-Indian.

Unfortunately, even in the modern era, the writing continues to be uneven. For example, he examines the rise of the Congress Party in great depth, but offers almost no detail on the Indo-Pak wars. Furthermore, after going to great lengths to discuss India the Sub-Continent (as opposed to the country) Keay has almost nothing to say about Pakistan in the post-partition era.

In the end, this isn't a terrible history, but it is terribly uneven, and incredibly dry. I definitely took away a greater knowledge of India and a better understanding of its history, but I was left wanting more. Perhaps that's the nature of any one-volume history, but I think it owes more to Keay's dry delivery and under appreciation of the sub-continent's cultures and religions. If you're new to Indian history, this probably isn't a bad place to start, but it is by no means a definitive work.