Hooray! You have added the first book to your bookshelf. Check it out now!
[−]
  • Search Digit-count Valid ISBN Invalid ISBN Valid Barcode Invalid Barcode
Blog this item

India After Gandhi

The History of the World's Largest Democracy

By Ramachandra Guha

(3)

| Hardcover | 9780060198817

Like India After Gandhi?
Join aNobii to see if your friends read it, and discover similar books!

Sign up for free

Book Description

Born against a background of privation and civil war, divided along lines of caste, class, language and religion, independent India emerged, somehow, as a united and democratic country. This remarkable book tells the full story—the pain and the struggle, the humiliations and the gloriesContinue

Born against a background of privation and civil war, divided along lines of caste, class, language and religion, independent India emerged, somehow, as a united and democratic country. This remarkable book tells the full story—the pain and the struggle, the humiliations and the glories—of the world's largest and least likely democracy.

Ramachandra Guha writes compellingly of the myriad protests and conflicts that have peppered the history of free India. But he writes also of the factors and processes that have kept the country together (and kept it democratic), defying numerous prophets of doom who believed that its poverty and heterogeneity would force India to break up or come under autocratic rule. Once the Western world looked upon India with a mixture of pity and contempt; now it looks upon India with fear and admiration.

Moving between history and biography, this story of modern India is peopled with extraordinary characters. Guha gives fresh insights on the lives and public careers of those long-serving prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. There are vivid sketches of the major "provincial" leaders whose province was as large as a European country: the Kashmiri rebel turned ruler Sheikh Abdullah; the Tamil film actor turned politician M. G. Rama-chandran; the Naga secessionist leader Angami Zapu Phizo; the socialist activist Jayaprakash Narayan. But the book also writes with feeling and sensitivity about lesser known (though not necessarily less important) Indians—peasants, tribals, women, workers and musicians.

Massively researched and elegantly written, India After Gandhi is at once a magisterial account of India's rebirth and the work of a major scholar at the height of his powers.

Critics

  • Midnight's citizens

    India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha 688pp, Macmillan, £25 It's in the nature of nations to be addicted to their own histories. Older, pre- national communities, one imagines, occupied themselves with m ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

  • All in the Family

    Late in “A Suitable Boy,” Vikram Seth’s fictional panorama of early 1950s India, the difficult but decent politician Mahesh Kapoor receives advice from an underling: “We should think above divisions, splits, cliques! ... This is India ... the country ... (read full critics)

    nytimes published on Sat, 18 Sep 2010

1 Review

Login or Sign Up to write a review

  • Probably the definitive history of modern, post-independence India. I don't know anything else quite like this book. Guha has drawn extensively from sources that you might not consider standard Historian material. He looks at old newspaper articles, magazines of the time, private correspondence b ... (continue)

    Probably the definitive history of modern, post-independence India. I don't know anything else quite like this book. Guha has drawn extensively from sources that you might not consider standard Historian material. He looks at old newspaper articles, magazines of the time, private correspondence between historical figures, and many other sources .... something you absolutely have to do, to write a detailed and layered history of a country without the most formal record retention. If you are looking to understand where modern India comes from, you cannot miss this book.

    Is this helpful?

    Brickandrope said on Mar 28, 2009 | Add your feedback

Book Details

  • Rating:
    (3)
    • 5 stars
    • 4 stars
    • 3 stars
    • 2 stars
    • 1 star
  • English Books
  • Hardcover 893 Pages
  • ISBN-10: 0060198818
  • ISBN-13: 9780060198817
  • Publisher: Ecco
  • Pub date: Aug 01, 2007
  • Dimensions: 1484 mm x 968 mm x 387 mm Just how big is that?
  • Also available as: Paperback
Improve data of this book

Groups with this in collection

Prices Change currency & sellers

ISBN Edition List Sale Seller
9780060198817 Hardcover $34.95 $25.37 bn.com
$34.95 $32.04 The Book Depository
Other editions →
+ 1 copy tradable: →
Added to Shelf Added to Wish List

Inline Translation Mode

Left click to navigate, right click to translate.

inline translation guide

or close

Inline translation is not ready for this page yet.

Inline translation mode.

Share this page with your friends.

The viewport has not loaded.