World History India

Explore the rich and storied culture of the Indian subcontinent. This region of the world, largely considered to be one of the cradles of civilization, has developed over a period of over 5,000 years. Consequently, this long run of history has drawn up a national history filled with intrigue, philosophy, art, architectural wonders, and the births and deaths of great men and women.

With the engaging style of a true storyteller, Ghee Bowman reveals for the first time the astonishing story of the Indian contingent–the Muslim soldiers who fought in the pivotal Battle of Dunkirk–from their arrival in France on 26 December 1939 to their return to an India on the verge of Partition.

In megacities like Mumbai, where half the population live in slums, the extraordinary riches of India’s new dynasties echo the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers of yesterday. James Crabtree’s The Billionaire Raj takes listeners on a personal journey to meet these reclusive billionaires, fugitive tycoons, and shadowy political power brokers. Crabtree dramatizes the battle between crony capitalists and economic reformers, revealing a tense struggle between equality and privilege playing out against a combustible backdrop of aspiration, class, and caste.

Pakistan's pathway to developing nuclear weapons remains shrouded in mystery and surrounded by misconceptions. While it is no secret why Pakistan became a nuclear power, how Pakistan became a nuclear state has been obscured by mythmaking. In Pakistan's Pathway to the Bomb, Mansoor Ahmed offers a revisionist history of Pakistan's nuclear program and the bureaucratic politics that shaped its development from its inception in 1956 until the 1998 nuclear tests.

In the late 1800s, British engineers building some of the first railways in the Dominion of India discovered large numbers of bricks buried in the dusty plains of the Punjab. This was odd because historians were not aware of any cities or civilizations which might have constructed buildings in this area. It wasn’t until archeological expeditions in the 1920s that it was finally realized that these bricks were the remains of mighty cities built by a previously unknown ancient civilization.

For all of India's myths, its sea of stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. In Incarnations, Sunil Khilnani fills that space, recapturing the human dimension of how the world's largest democracy came to be. His trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors, philosophers, film stars, and corporate titans - some famous, some unjustly forgotten - bring feeling, wry humor, and uncommon insight to dilemmas that extend from ancient times to our own.

November 1944: Army airmen set out in a B-24 bomber on what should have been an easy mission off the Borneo coast. Instead they found themselves unexpectedly facing a Japanese fleet: and were shot down. When they cut themselves loose from their parachutes, they were scattered across the island's mountainous interior. Then a group of loincloth-wearing natives silently materialized out of the jungle. Would these Dayak tribesmen turn the starving airmen over to the hostile Japanese occupiers?

There is no record of Marco Polo ever visiting the Andaman Islands, so his brief description of the islanders must have been drawn from a secondary source. They were, he wrote, “a most brutish and savage race, having heads, eyes, and teeth like those of dogs. They are very cruel, and kill and eat every foreigner whom they can lay their hands upon.”

Based on six years of detailed research and on-the-ground reporting, the book builds - authoritatively, vividly, indelibly - to become the story of post-colonial India. Using hundreds of interviews, and letters, diary entries, Partition-era police reports, and an astonishing range of sources, Bhatia shows how history plays a recurring role in the present: in politics, in the minds of citizens, in notions of justice and corruption.

Focusing on the author’s tiger-hunting exploits, Man-Eating Tigers of India includes a detailed description of the tiger’s habits and instructions on how to organize and conduct a safe and successful hunt. This chore of putting an end to man-eating tigers seems to have been the burden of Baker. The work concludes with a riveting narrative of an actual case of hunting and eliminating a troublesome tiger.

Born into the minor aristocracy (as Eugenia Peterson), Devi grew up in the midst of one of the most turbulent times in human history. Forced to flee the Russian Revolution as a teenager, she joined a famous Berlin cabaret troupe, dove into the vibrant prewar spiritualist movement, and, at a time when it was nearly unthinkable for a young European woman to travel alone, followed the charismatic theosophical leader Jiddu Krishnamurti to India.

In 1611, 34-year-old Nur Jahan, daughter of a Persian noble and widow of a subversive official, became the 20th and favorite wife of Emperor Jahangir, who ruled the vast Mughal Empire. Nur's confident assertion of talent and power is revelatory; it far exceeded the authority of her female contemporaries in Renaissance Europe, including Elizabeth I. Here, she finally receives her due in a deeply researched and evocative biography that awakens us to a fascinating history.

In 1991 India faced its 'Greece moment': an unprecedented financial crisis against the backdrop of political uncertainty and crumbling investor confidence. On 21 June 1991, P. V. Narasimha Rao became prime minister and appointed Dr Manmohan Singh as finance minister. In less than 35 days, the Rao-Singh duo ushered in momentous changes in economic policy - those that transformed the country.

For a brief moment on December 27, 2007, life came to a standstill in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, the country's former prime minister and the first woman ever to lead a Muslim country, had been assassinated at a political rally just outside Islamabad. Back in Karachi--Bhutto's birthplace and Pakistan's other great metropolis--Rafia Zakaria's family was suffering through a crisis of its own: her uncle Sohail, the man who had brought shame upon the family, was near death.

Thanks to its commercial complexion and the power invested in a board of directors, British rule in India was characterized by economic monopolies, aggressive trade practices, punitive taxation, and the impoverishment of vast regions of India. Much of the company's industry was based on a policy of producing and exporting raw materials from India, and importing manufactured goods to satisfy an almost unlimited local market.

Home to the world’s most ancient religions and practices, India is indeed a nation enriched with a fascinating history. The subcontinent has hosted a legion of great empires, monumental battles, religions, cultures, foreign invasions, and much more. From prehistoric to modern, 50 of the most formative eras of the subcontinent are discussed. Relating the zenith and nadir of India’s past, this audiobook provides crisp and riveting accounts of one of the world’s most ancient nations.

Everything that could possibly be wrong with a city was wrong with Calcutta. When Kushanava Choudhury arrived in New Jersey at the age of 12, he had already migrated halfway around the world four times. After graduating from Princeton, he moved back to the world which his immigrant parents had abandoned, to a city built between a river and a swamp, where the moisture-drenched air swarms with mosquitos after sundown.

India-a cradle of civilization with five millennia of history, a country of immense consequence and contradiction-often defies ready understanding. What holds its people together-across its many cultures, races, languages, and creeds-and how has India evolved into the liberal democracy it is today?

The height of Mount Everest was first measured in 1850, but the closest any Westerner got to Everest during the next 71 years, until 1921, was 40 miles. The Hunt for Mount Everest tells the story of the 71-year quest to find the world's highest mountain. It's a tale of high drama, of larger-than-life characters - George Everest, Francis Younghusband, George Mallory, Lord Curzon, Edward Whymper - and a few quiet heroes: Alexander Kellas, the 13th Dalai Lama, Charles Bell.

Before the East India Company and before the British Empire, England was a pariah state. Seeking better fortunes, 16th and 17th century merchants, pilgrims and outcasts ventured to the kingdom of the mighty Mughals, attempting to sell coarse woollen broadcloth along the silk roads; playing courtiers in the Mughal palaces in pursuit of love; or simply touring the sub-continent in search of an elephant to ride.