India: A History Kindle Edition

This book spends as much time with historiographic issues as it does with history (about 1/3 of each chapter is devoted to detailing the various literary, archaeological, and other sources for the history and the problems with such sources). This tends to interrupt the narrative flow, and the grand arc of the story in the history gets lost. This would be a perfect volume for someone who already had a firm grasp of the general outline of Indian history and wanted to fill in the details (in exhaustive detail). I would not recommend it for someone setting out to gain a basic knowledge of Indian history or someone looking for a "readable" history. It is a useful compendium nonetheless.

This is quite a unique book in the sense that it accounts for all the history of India (and in the final chapters of Pakistan and Bangladesh) from the very beginning to the last 2000's in a rather detailed and chronologically organized manner with clear language and explanations, and many pictures to accompany the text. Precisly what I was looking for!

In spite of some strange (and poor jabs) at Ancient Greek language and values (e.g. the inferiority in the expressiveness of Ancient Greek compared to Sanskrit while contrary to Modern Greek, Hindustani was unable to draw from Sanskrit to modernize the language to the admission of the author) I would most definitely give this book top marks and would whole heartedly recommend it to anyone who wants to read about the history of the Indian subcontinent.

Comprehensive history of India over 5,000 years to present. Excellent, but could use illustrations of the many shrines and temples mentioned. Author frequently switches back and forth between time periods without out clear delineation. Many of the places and leaders mentioned have multiple names, and the author confusingly switches among them while describing the period A directory would be helpful, likewise a dictionary giving the translation of the many Indian terms used would be helpful for reference when the words are repeatedly used. Maps presented are helpful given the many changes in boundaries of the territories, states and countries over time, but more detail on the maps would be helpful.

If all of your knowledge about Indian history is derived only from text book, then this is a great read to expand your knowledge and develop newer and more accurate understanding of Indian history. The greatness of the book is in it being most honest and truthful about history which is largely based on evidence gathered from numerous sources like archaeology, literature, linguistics, cultural studies and vast amounts of existing older historical writing. Most Indian history writing tends to sway between extreme view points of either Indian nationalism or one of imperialistic partisanship. This book is quite honest and stays somewhere ideally in the middle. In general author restrains himself from jumping to conclusions based on vague evidence. However, lack of evidence doesn't mean no story or less interesting story. Largely relaying on evidence which is sometimes very obscure author using his intellect often makes very mature and educated conclusions and speculations about the actual course of events.

Keay is whimsical in some of his portrays of persons or events sometimes contradicting familial perception; some of which might well be true when looked at it from an absolute sense. For example though he refers to MK Gandhi as 'Mahatma'(great soul), Keay tends to think by no means Gandhi was most influential in the cause towards Indian freedom. Next, the role of revolutionaries in Indian freedom struggle who are idolized by many nationalists are brushed aside as terrorist activities in an absolute sense. Figures like Bhagat Singh etc dont even get a mention in the book! (I am not being critical of this). Other things, hes seen critical of the Brahmanical authority and caste system which has dominated most of Hindu society and religion based bloody conquests by medieval Muslim kings.

Author spends good time narrating the ancient and medieval Indian history. The modern portion especially the Indian freedom movement is somewhat brisk and (even misses some details) than I would have liked it to be; yet I liked his narration of Indian political history after Independence(1947) portraying the influential characters of Indira Gandhi, ZA Bhutto and Mujibur Rehman doing justice to real state of events. But for a good read on modern Indian History I am told Ramachandra Guha's 'India after Gandhi' is a good book. In this revised book, he even covers the most recent communal tensions of Ayodhya, Mumbai etc and the Afhgan/Taliban war against terror.

I was initially inclined towards buying different books for ancient, medieval and modern Indian history, but since I didnt find good recos for each separately,I decided to try this one-in-all book. Given the obscurity and lack of direct evidence associated with Indian history, one has to say its a great piece of work with all five thousand years of Indian history condensed into one precisely well written , highly recommended book.

I have never read a history of India that is better written or substantiated. From 5000 BC onwards, the reader is taken through a treasure trove of facts and observations, often reading like a fiction novel.

I have learned a lot and plan to reread the beginning to better understand the Genesis of this nation and it's identity.