Customer Reviews

A New History of India

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4 star:		(5)
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1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

The different empires that ruled and the different religions and their influences were explored in some detail in this book. The early civilizations, the Deli Sultanate, the Mogul Empire, the British Empire, and the breakup were all described. Also interesting was the rather detailed analysis of current politics and political intrigue within India, but it did go on a bit too much. And the recent modernizations combined with the dramatic story of Gandhi, and the many leaders in India after him that tried to rule such a divided land made for an engaging story. Learning about Kashmir was important, and the several wars fought between India and Pakistan. Also the pact between the USSR and India at the same time as the cooperation with the USA during the Cold War was interesting and pragmatic. Finally, following the way India has gone from desiring to be self-sufficient to a more open and market economy, and the dramatic effects this process has had on the nation was absolutely fascinating. Overall I learned to appreciate the extreme diversity, pride, and richness of Indian history and culture. But the book's one lacking factor was giving a personal feel to the Indian culture. It inspires me to read more on the culture and religion of India, as this history seemed more political in its orientation.

This was an excellent book. I am an Indian, and went through schooling in India where we were shoved "politically correct" history through our throat. This book clears up so much. For instance even today Indian textbooks refer to the mughal invaders as great men (to pacify certain minority communities). Mr. Wolpert is not averse to write about them as they actually were; marauders and looters.

Not only I feel better informed about India, but I have a better perspective about my own self, and psyche.

A must read if you want to know the history of India in a few interesting pages. Although it is a history text, it reads like a novel.

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.

Stanley Wolpert's book on the history of India remains the most comprehensive and readable work ever written on this subject. The extensive story of the people of the Indian subcontinent, belonging to four different nations, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, from 2500 BC to the end of the 20th century is beautifully laid out in this book. Wolpert has successfully and honestly documented the struggles and aspirations of the people of this subcontinent.

India is a land of complexities and contradictions, with variety in faith, ethnic background, language and lifestyle. Therefore it is hard to capture the spirit of this land and its people. Wolpert has been successful with his mastery and expertise over the cultures, languages and faiths of these people belonging to various subgroups. Above all, it is his love for this land and its people that is evident in the pages of this well-written book. For anyone interested in India this is the book to begin with, and indeed it is an easy read.

Stanley Wolpert manages something remarkable in this brisk history of India: He covers more than 40 centuries in 456 pages but never forgets that he is writing about real human beings. For example, Wolpert compellingly tells the story of the brilliant, ruthless Mughal leader Alamgir, who at the end of his life in 1707 looks back in anguish at the destruction and death he has wrought: "I came alone and I go as a stranger. I do not know who I am, nor what I have been doing ... I have sinned terribly, and I do not know what punishment awaits me.'' And there's the scheming Sir Robert Clive, who achieves wealth and power beyond imagination - and then kills himself. Wolpert obviously loves India, and his book is filled with passion you rarely find in introductory historical surveys. You feel his despair over the natural calamities and failures of leadership that have inflicted so much suffering on the subcontinent's people. (The edition I read was published in 2000, during the early stages of India's economic takeoff; if there's a more recent version, it might be a bit happier.) Despite all the villains and charlatans, there are heroes here too, notably Nehru, who kept the place together in the tumultuous early years of independence, and of course Gandhi. (Wolpert has written biographies of both, and I plan to read them.) My only complaint: The names, dates, events and places fly past so swiftly - Gandhi's assassination gets a couple sentences - that it's sometimes hard to keep track of them. But then, that's probably unavoidable in a text that covers so much ground so quickly. (A bonus for readers who linger over acknowledgements: Wolpert writes a very sweet note to his wife of more than four decades.)

I've always wanted to learn about my Indian heritage. They don't teach India's history in grades 1-12 (very European focused). This book was great in giving me that introduction. The book tries to cover all of India from 2500BC to 1998. Eventhough I thought it was a great book, I wish there were more maps of India during the different time periods. With the number of changes and cities mentioned it would have helped to follow along a little better. I've learned a lot about India's History and I also realize I still have a lot more to learn about it. I've been recommending this book to all my friends.

A lot of dramatic archaeological discoveries make the early chapters of the book totally outdated. For example, it has been discovered that there exists a rock art tradition in India that goes back to 40000 BC. The Harappan tradition itself goes back to about 8000 BC. Archaeologists have abandoned the idea that the Indian civilization is a result of some invasion or immigration. The chronology of the Vedic texts is thus an open question. The more recent material is likewise very weak, slanted overmuch toward a liberal-Marxist view that the ``official'' Congress historians have espoused. The least Mr Wolpert can do is to give the book a new, major revision, lacking which it will remain hopelessly outdated.