A New History of India [Paperback]

Stanley Wolpert (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 019510031X | ISBN-13: 978-0195100310 | Publication Date: February 27, 1997 | Edition: 5

Half a century of freedom has tripled India's population and more than quadrupled its gross domestic product. Its economy has been lifted to new heights within the last five years alone. Nearly 200 million urban educated Indian business managers, skilled scientists and professionals, political leaders, and government officials have sprung to affluence, creating an India that is enjoying all the pleasures of modern Western life. For some, however, India's past remains a reality, its poverty a continuing presence, and its economic strides still unable to create equality among the sexes. The New History of India, now in its fifth edition, explores today's affluent India, its rich culture, and its best theologians, politicians, and social activists. This fifth edition remains the most readable and illuminating one-volume history of India and brings students up-to-date on current developments. Wolpert places these developments within the context of India's 4,000 years of continental continuity and communal complexity. No other history records as brilliantly, nor as truthfully, the brightest achievements of Indian civilization and the dark depths of its socio-sexual inequities and economic-political corruption. Invaluable for history courses focusing on the past, present, and future of India, this revised edition maintains its position as the best survey of India.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A splendid history."--Howard Erdman, Dartmouth College

"The best one-volume reference on India."--James Rueh, Arizona State University

"Clearly the best one-volume history of India currently available."--John E. Wood, James Madison University

About the Author

Stanley Wolpert is Professor of History at the University of California at Los Angeles. His many publications include the famous novel Nine Hours ot Rama (1962), Tilak and Gokhale (1962), Roots of Confrontation in South Asia (Oxford, 1982), Jinnah of Pakistan (Oxford, 1984) and Congress and Indian Nationalism (1989).
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 5 edition (February 27, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 019510031X
• ISBN-13: 978-0195100310
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,676,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well documented work on a complex land and culture, June 3, 2001

By 

Alok Chakrabarti "Prof.C" (Allentown, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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

Stanley Wolpert devoted to the study of the history of the Indian sub continent has produced a remarkable book on India. If you have just enough time to read only one book on India, I will definitely recommend this one.

The history and the pluralistic culture of India are indeed complex. Wolpert provides a panoramic view of the development of Indian culture that has been formed through amalgamation and mixing of many cultures, races and religions. And he has done quite well. I am also very impressed with the fact that he has not adopted the usual western paternalistic attitudes towards his subject.

Wolpert's book should be read not only by the historians, but also people in the field of business, particularly those gurus of globalization who chaff at the slow pace of changes in countries like India. Wolpert provides a well-documented story of the plunder and subjugation of the Indians carried out in the name of international trade. After all East India Company was just another multinational company. To save the interests of the Company and its members the British government had to take over India.

But one can't blame the British for the take over. The late eighteen century saw India as a divided nation, various factions based on religion, caste and regional roots made it ripe for foreign invasions. What happened in India also linked to the wider scene in other part of the world. Lord Cornwallis who suffered a humiliating defeat in New York, appeared in India as the powerful general and did all he could to establish his might. Fights among the different kings in Europe had direct bearing on their fights in India.

To his credit, Wolpert has carried his story right up to the present time and made a heroic attempt to portray the current happenings in simplified ways. I however, detect a pro- American bias in this part of his book. The Nobel Peace Prize Winner Kisinger had a role in pushing the India- Pakistan war leading to the creation Bangladesh, but that was glossed over. Instead, Wolpert portrays Indira Gandhi choosing Russia over the western alliance and thus deviating from her father's policy of non-alignment. As a person who lived in the USA during the Nixon, I vividly remember how this Metternich of the US nudged the sub continent to war.

In any case, Wolpert has produced a very good book free from ideological preaching. It is a good book to read and have.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideal Introduction, January 3, 2003

By 

David Casey (California) - See all my reviews

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

I am not sure how a serious student of Indian history would rate this book but for me as a novice it was ideal. It is very concise yet quite readable which is a great feat for any survey style book. I picked it up because I was curious to know more about India of antiquity after reading about Alexander the Great's war with king Porus. Not only I filled in those gaps but learned a great deal more because the book turned out to be fun to read. It covers everything from the most ancient times of pre Indo-European Harpalla and the city of the dead to Ghandi. I recommend to any novice who just wants to quickly learn essential facts of Indian history.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not bad, but was expecting a little more, January 8, 2007

By 

Pen Name - See all my reviews

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

We tend to think of Alexander the Great as one belonging to another culture distant in time and space but I didn't get that feeling when reading history from the Indian perspective. India's history is full of people from the west invading them. We get the Aryans, then Alexander, then the Portuguese, French, and British. The latter three seem so different from the first two but in some ways, they are just more invaders from Europe and we see how the Indians dealt with each invasion in this book. It makes the history of that land run smoothly despite the thousands of years this book covers. We are left with at least one question though, and it's the same question we might ask ourselves when reading about Japan or China: this book quotes someone from one of the world wars as saying "Indian civilization was around when Germany was just a forest and the Britons were painting their skin blue", so how did countries like Britain and Germany end up defining modernization for nations like India, China, and Japan by the 19th century? Someone should write a book on that subject.

One problem I have with this book was that India's earlier history before the Islamic invasion felt brief, with small chapters covering full cultural eras while everything from Islam up to modern India was much more detailed. But this could just be because the author was at the mercy of the sources. On modern India, I gained a more holistic perspective on the issue of "secularism" and fundamentalist Hinduism. Previously I thought the pseudo-secularist movement in India was just a front for Islamic and Christian advancement (not equality) over Hinduism in politics (why does the pope support secularism in India but wants Christianity enshrined in Europe's constitution?...among many other things about Indian secularism that raise my eyebrow). But now I know, after reading this book, that there is more to it than that. The issue seems to go back to when the subcontinent was partitioned into India and Pakistan. When the Muslims wanted to create their own country, Hindus and others argued against it on the grounds that India would be a secular nation and therefore impartial to either religion. This explains why Hindu secularists have bent over backwards for religious "minorities" that are fundamentally hostile to Hinduism.

Another problem I have is that the modern history of India in this book focus's too much on politics and not very much on every day culture. I find it hard to believe that India's culture has not gone through tremendous changes since it won independence. The book talks a lot about India's poverty problem and attempts to fix this by the government or by American corporations but doesn't talk about any of the charities that work in India, whether Hindu, Christian, or secular, or how such charities have affected the people of India, if at all.