Customer Reviews

India

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I had to write because I do not understand the negative reviews of this fabulous book. The writing is so vivid you can picture each of the places he discusses even without the beautiful photographs. Wood knows how to tell history as a rich narrative. I thoroughly enjoyed the recent books on Indian history, "Indian Summer" by von Tunzelmann and "In Spite of the Gods" by Luce, but this epic tale of the entire sweep of Indian history from prehistory to today is even better. I can't imagine what the negative reviewers are looking for. I find this a remarkably rich and varied tale, well told. I highly recommend it.

I've got Michael Woods series on Troy on DVD, ditto for his Alexander the Great show. And I've picked up some of his books too including this one.

The real crux of the matter here is that Wood does not seem to have hit the nail on the head with this book. When covering Troy or Alexander The Great he provided a lot of detail and logical thought to his subject. The books flowed just as well as the made for TV history series(a much maligned sub genre). Here however the chronological history seems somewhat confusing, not terribly well defined in time and space and not overly engaging though thankfully the book has provided me with a few other products to chase down to fill in some of the shortfall.

Things do pick up somewhat in later chapters where Wood is covering more modern history and where the vibrancy and colour of India shine through and the authors obvious interest in his subject starts to engage the reader. Also the couple of groups of colour plates do help the reader glean some sense of the grandeur that is India.

As a fan of Wood I came a way a little non-plussed by this outing but I still intend at some point to get his DVD of the same name. Not bad or anything of the sort but not something a newcomer to the subject was looking for.

The book helps in better understanding of the chronological events that Michael Wood lays out from first human migration into India to present times. The strongest parts are the early periods for which there is lack of written history and later where mythology and history have blended together. Not exhaustive but a great read. I would also recomment Abraham Eraly's book- Gem in Lotus Pond.

This book goes well with the DVD set and I enjoyed reading it (along with the pictures). But it does seem a little biased. I know India is a very diverse nation, with many nationalities, ethnicities and religions all somewhat peacefully coexisting in the same area. But there are slight seperations between them all even though people wouldn't outwardly say it. The book, while I love it, does not cover these hard topics as well as some other books out there and leaves an unknowing person with a utopian image of the sub-continent.

This is the companion to the PBS series narrated by the author regarding the history and culture of India. India is a fascinating country that is growing geometrically in importance, making this a particularly educational and worthwhile purchase. For what you get, the price is unrealistically LOW.

This is a rich, affectionate travelogue of modern India. Among the best parts is its very good overview of recent fascinating developments in India's rich archaeology. The common tendency of archaeology to be used to gild Indian nationalism is noted, but not vigorously deplored.

There is some obtrusive and tedious self-loathing by this post-war British liberal. He writes as if it were the British who were the bloodthirsty, destructive invaders, and Muslims who were the reformers and modernizers. He might read his Will & Ariel Durant, who assert that the Islamic invasion of India was the bloodiest in history.

The pictures are stunning, and are worth the price of the book.

I was delighted with Michael Wood's PBS series, "The Story of India," so decided I must have his book. (I am planning a second trip to India at the end of the year.) I have only completed the first few chapters at this writing. While the text is erudite, but lucid, I find it maddening to have to keep turning back to the only map the book has on pg. 6. And then, most of the places he speaks of in his narration aren't even on that map! How I wish that the beginning of each chapter would have had a close-up map of that part of the country he discusses! And, it would also be helpful if he gave a clue about the new name/old name for places, as well.

History is an opinionated art form which must rely on science, technology and archeology to constantly refine its opinions, and sometimes convert opinions to facts. The history of India written by Indians and non-Indians follows a viewpoint defined by European sources, ancient Chinese sources, and medieval Muslim sources. While sometimes useful, this trajectory often follows an opinionated path, often colorized and divorced from reality, as illustrated, for example, by the opinions of Romila Thapar and her school of thought. The cautious historian does not negate any piece of evidence, be it archeological, oral tradition, living traditions, in addition to scripture evidence, preserved writing and paintings, rock-inscriptions, etc. It takes a great leap of bigotry or is just poor scholarship to negate a whole set of traditional evidence as irrelevant, as exemplified by Romila Thapar, and unfortunately continued by Michael Wood.

The book offers selected vignettes from Indian history from pre-historical to the current time. The book has a lot of valuable illustrations and photographs collected from museums in the Indian sub-continent. This is the biggest plus of this book, written by a documentary film-maker, and less a historian. Additionally, I liked his reporting archeological evidence from as recent as 2005. Unfortunately, he trashes Indian epics as non-history (never mind that satellite imagery has revealed the existence of the Vedic-era river, Saraswati, and the submerged city of Krishna Dwaraka off the Western coast). Then when he discusses British rule in India, he could not have selected softer kid-gloves. His credibility as a historian is shot in just these two aspects. As a historian he has fallen prey to becoming a victim of his opinions, rather than an unbiased examination of the evidence.

Read this book for what it is - a film-maker's view of selected episodes of Indian history and enjoy the imagery presented. For authoritative history, you must look elsewhere.

I am giving this a 3-star, but I will value the glossy book with its important collection of photographs and illustrations, on my book-shelf, as well as the DVD.

Nice photos. But...

On the one hand we have misty-eyed, politically-correct nostalgia for the few Moslem leaders who tolerated Hindus and Buddhists and were thus assassinated as apostate and replaced by their more pious brethren.

Contrast this with the condemnation of the British East India Company depicted as a roll model for today's multinationals "who (sic) exercise the power of life and death over large swathes of the world." (p. 217)

Give yourself a break and skip the text.

Anybody know a good history of India?

I bought this book hoping to better understand the culture of India. Instead, I find the book incredibly biased, dry, and extremely non-informative.

The introduction of the history is a mess. The author doesn't seem to have any real understanding of India. What's in the book is like bits and pieces of short paragraphs copied from reference books.

The analysis of the culture has absolutely no depth. The not-so-well grounded admiration of the culture makes one wonder whether the author has even been to India or know any Indian.

Avoid Avoid Avoid.