Having been inspired by this book I have now sought out some of the sources referenced therein to add to my library.

This can confuse as the times will necessarily backtrack a little to say cover say Bombay and then Madras.Īs a history book, this is a well researched and written book aswell as being easy to read. The author tries to mitigate this by breaking the chapters into different different time periods and regions. I found it mostly a very good read thanks to the use of entertaining anecdotes but because it does try to encompass so much into a tiny space there are a lot of facts and background information introduced to cover a each chapter. In this brilliant new edition, John Keay continues the narrative of India's history - covering events from partition to the present day and examining the very different fortunes of the three successor states: Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Republic of India.īased on the latest research, this is an indispensible history of a country set to be a definitive influence on the future of world economics, politics and culture.I would disagree with some of the other reviewers on the matter of dryness, I have read much drier history books. The peoples of the Indian subcontinent, while sharing a common history and culture, are not now, and never have been, a single unitary state the book accommodates Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as other embryonic nation states like the Sikh Punjab, Muslim Kashmir and Assam. Older, richer and more distinctive than almost any other, India's culture furnishes all that the historian could wish for in the way of continuity and diversity. The pattern of inward invasion plus outward migration was established early: from Alexander the Great via the march of Islam and the great Moghuls to the coming of the East India Company and the establishment of the British Raj.

India's history begins with a highly advanced urban civilisation in the Indus valley, regressing to a tribal and pastoral nomadism, and then evolving into a uniquely stratified society. The most authoritative and highly regarded single-volume history of India - from ancient time to the modern day.įive millennia of the sub-continent's social, economic, political and cultural history are interpreted by one of our finest writers on India and the Far East.

India by john keay