BOOKS OF THE WEEK - SATURDAY, 28TH DECEMBER, 2019

History Men 
Jadunath Sarkar, G.S. Sardesai, Raghubir Sinh 
and Their Quest for India's Past
by -  T.C.A. Raghavan
ISBN : 9789353573850
Cost Rs. 799.00
About the Book
History Men is the story of the intersecting lives of three deeply committed historians: Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958), who was an expert on the Mughal period; G.S. Sardesai (1865-1959), whose works were on the Marathas; and Raghubir Sinh (1908-1991), who studied the Rajputs. How the three became close friends and joint workers; how they wrote about the great confrontations between the Mughals, Rajputs and Marathas; how their long association exposed continuing conflicts of interpretation and explanation; and how, together, they illuminated a historical moment make for a story worth telling. A narrative built from original research based on the correspondence and the published and unpublished writings of the three scholars, this is also a portrait of rich friendships, of the minutiae of the lives of these historians, and their fierce commitment to historical research as they addressed the significant questions of the age they lived in. Anyone who is interested in the making of historical narratives will find History Men a compelling read.
About the Author
T.C.A. Raghavan has a PhD in history from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has been High Commissioner of India to Singapore and to Pakistan. He retired from the Indian Foreign Service in 2015. His first book, Attendant Lords: Bairam Khan and Abdur Rahim, Courtiers and Poets in Mughal India, was awarded the Mohammad Habib Memorial Prize for the best book on medieval Indian history by the Indian History Congress in 2017. He is also the author of The People Next Door: The Curious History of India's Relations with Pakistan (2017). He is currently Director-General of the Indian Council of World Affairs in New Delhi.
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BOOKS OF THE WEEK - SATURDAY, 21ST DECEMBER, 2019

The Absent Dialogue 
By -  Anit Mukherjee

About the Book
ISBN : 9780197507193   
Cost Rs. 1100.00

Civilian control over the military is widely hailed as one of the major successes of India's democracy. Because it is so rare, especially among post-colonial states, this control is rightfully celebrated. But has this come at a cost.  in the absent dialogue, an it Mukherjee argues that the pattern of civil-military relations in India has hampered its military effectiveness. Diving deep into understanding the organization and internal processes within the Indian military, he explains how Indian politicians and bureaucrats have long been content with the formal and ritualistic exercise of civilian control, while the military continues to operate in institutional silos. Yet, there has been little substantive engagement between the two. To support this claim, Mukherjee closely examines the variables most closely associated with military effectiveness-weapons procurement, jointness (the ability of separate military services to operate together), Officer education, promotion policies, and defense planning. Further, Mukherjee shows how India's pattern of civil-military relations-best characterized as an absent dialogue-adversely affects each of these processes. While the book focuses on India, It also highlights the importance of civilian expertise and institutional design in enhancing civilian control and military effectiveness in other democracies.  informed by more than a hundred and fifty interviews and recently available archival material, the absent dialogue sheds new light on India's military and will reshape our understanding of both the history and contemporary dynamics of civil-military relations and recurring problems therein.
About the Author
Anit Mukherjee is Assistant Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution India Center. He has a Ph.D. from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University and was formerly an officer in the Indian Army.
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BOOKS OF THE WEEK - SATURDAY, 14TH DECEMBER, 2019

Diamond in my Palm 

By - Sanjay Dharwadker

ISBN :9789382035305 
Price Rs. 795/-
About the book
At a Middle Eastern international airport, a Gandhian scholar from Hyderabad and a mining engineer from Johannesburg meet fortuitously and romance brews. Their love unfolds amongst stories of twelve celebrated diamonds that were once lost from India, changed destinies of emperors and empires since, and are the pride of nations around the world today. Their journey also confronts a wily diamond trader from Lucknow, a vivacious former clerk at Anglo-Dutch and an ambitious business woman of African political pedigree, once a student in Moscow. The Indian dies in a carjacking incident and a South African woman apparently jumps to her death from her sixth-floor hotel room. An eminent Brahmin scholar is crushed under the weight of “five thousand years of learning” when a giant bookcase topples on him. Are these deaths accidents or crimes part of a much larger web of desire, deceit, power & retribution in the five-thousand-year history of the world’s most magnificent precious stones? It is as much a literary novel as a fast-paced crime thriller with animated characters, who inhabit the richly evoked social worlds of global cities, from Johannesburg, Antwerp, New York to Hyderabad, Mumbai & Delhi. Within its fictional setting, for the very first time – the astounding trajectory of the world’s twelve premier diamonds is fully unravelled – that motivates its characters, intensifies its action, and solves the manifold mystery in the climactic finale. Sanjay Dharwadker is an alumnus of BITS Pilani in India. Currently based in Netherlands, he works closely with governments and the United Nations on identity law, policy and practices and continues to write. --- Dharwadker writes a fast-paced narrative with verve and wit. Dilip M. Menon, Mellon Chair in Indian Studies, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.

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BOOKS OF THE WEEK - SATURDAY, 7TH DECEMBER. 2019

Mapping the Great Game
Explorers, Spies & Maps in Nineteenth-century Asia 
By - Riaz Dean 
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ISBN : 9780670092918
Price : Rs 599/-
About the book : The Great Game raged through the wilds of Central Asia during the nineteenth century, as Imperial Russia and Great Britain jostled for power. Tsarist armies gobbled up large tracts of Turkestan, advancing inexorably towards their ultimate prize, India. These rivals understood well that the first need of an army in a strange land is a reliable map, prompting desperate efforts to explore and chart out uncharted regions. Two distinct groups would rise to this challenge: a band of army officers, who would become the classic Great Game players; and an obscure group of natives employed by the Survey of India, known as the Pundits.
While 'the game' played out, a self-educated cartographer named William Lambton began mapping the Great Arc, attempting to measure the actual shape of the Indian subcontinent. It was completed four decades later by a fellow officer working for the Survey of India, George Everest, who would have a special mountain named in his honour. The Great Arc would then lauded as 'one of the most stupendous works in the whole history of science'. Meanwhile, the Pundits, travelling entirely on foot and with meagre resources, would be among the first to enter Tibet and reveal the mysteries of its forbidden capital, Lhasa.
Featuring forgotten, enthralling episodes of derring-do combined, and of the most sincere efforts to map India's boundaries, Mapping the Great Game is the thrilling story of espionage and cartography which shrouded the Great Game and helped map a large part of Asia as we know it today.
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About the Author : Riaz Dean has travelled much of the area described in this book, including the two halves of what was once Turkestan, and on the Roof of the World that divides them. He collects old maps and books about the exploration of this region, and has written of the ancient Silk Road and its mapping. Born and raised in the Fiji Islands, he subsequently lived on three continents before settling in New Zealand. Here, after four years of research and writing he completed this, his first book.
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