The 100 Greatest Indian, Pakistani and South Asian History & Politics Books
Krishna Fluting to the Milkmaids
The 100 Greatest Indian, Pakistani and South Asian History and Politics Books list begins with a selection of general histories followed by more specialised texts.
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1. Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy
Drawing on the newest historical research and scholarship in the field, Modern South Asia provides challenging insights into the history of this fascinating region over the past three centuries. Jointly authored by two leading Indian and Pakistani historians, it offers a rare depth of historical understanding of the ... More »
2. Subalterns and Raj: South Asia since 1600
Subalterns and Raj presents a unique introductory history of India with an account that begins before the period of British rule, and pursues the continuities within that history up to the present day. Its coverage ranges from Mughal India to post-independence Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, with a ... More »
3. The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories
By Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar
Nation-states often shape the boundaries of historical enquiry, and thus silence the very histories that have sutured nations to territorial states. "India" and "Pakistan" were drawn onto maps in the midst of Partition's genocidal violence and one of the largest displacements of people in the twentieth century. Yet ... More »
4. Unruly Waters: How Rains, Rivers, Coasts, and Seas Have Shaped Asia's History
By Sunil Amrith
Asia's history has been shaped by her waters. In Unruly Waters, historian Sunil Amrith reimagines Asia's history through the stories of its rains, rivers, coasts, and seas -- and of the weather-watchers and engineers, mapmakers and farmers who have sought to control them. Looking out from India, he ... More »
5. Islamic Civilization in South Asia: A History of Muslim Power and Presence in the Indian Subcontinent
By Burjor Avari
Muslims have been present in South Asia for 14 centuries. Nearly 40% of the people of this vast land mass follow the religion of Islam, and Muslim contribution to the cultural heritage of the sub-continent has been extensive. This textbook provides both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well ... More »
6. Malaria in Colonial South Asia: Uncoupling Disease and Destitution
This book highlights the role of acute hunger in malaria lethality in colonial South Asia and investigates how this understanding came to be lost in modern medical, epidemic, and historiographic thought. Using the case studies of colonial Punjab, Sri Lanka, and Bengal, it traces the loss of ... More »
7. India's War: World War II and the Making of Modern South Asia
Between 1939 and 1945 India underwent extraordinary and irreversible change. Hundreds of thousands of Indians suddenly found themselves in uniform, fighting in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Europe and-something simply never imagined-against a Japanese army poised to invade eastern India. With the threat of the Axis ... More »
8. Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650-1900
By Kapil Raj
Relocating Modern Science challenges the belief that modern science was created uniquely in the West and was subsequently diffused elsewhere. Through a detailed analysis of key moments in the history of science, it demonstrates the crucial roles of circulation and intercultural encounter for their emergence. More »
9. A Postcolonial People: South Asians in Britain
By Nasreen Ali; Virinder Kalra; Salman Sayyid
A Postcolonial People is a lively, critical survey of contemporary South Asian Britain that fills a conspicuous gap in the literature. This specially commissioned book combines conceptually innovative analysis with empirically rich studies to map out the diversity of the British Asian way of life. The migration and ... More »
10. A New History of India
After more than twenty-five years in print, A New History of India continues to be the most readable and popular one-volume history of India available. Now in its eighth edition, this acclaimed text features updated scholarship and bibliographic material throughout and integrates new research on such incisive topics ... More »
11. A Concise History of Modern India
By Barbara D. Metcalf; Thomas R. Metcalf
A Concise History of Modern India, by Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf, has become a classic in the field since it was first published in 2001. As a fresh interpretation of Indian history from the Mughals to the present, it has informed students across the world. ... More »
12. Modern India: A Very Short Introduction
India is widely recognized as a new global powerhouse. It has become one of the world's emerging powers, rivaling China in terms of global influence. Yet people still know relatively little about the economic, social, political, and cultural changes unfolding in India today. To what extent are people ... More »
13. Interpreting Early India
In this study, Romila Thapar argues the importance of understanding and positioning various well-established perspectives on the Indian past in order to arrive at an informed understanding of contemporary situations--such as disputes between Hindus and other Indian communities. It is vitally important for historians and informed lay readers ... More »
14. Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India
By Ranajit Guha
What is colonialism and what is a colonial state? Ranajit Guha points out that the colonial state in South Asia was fundamentally different from the metropolitan bourgeois state which sired it. The metropolitan state was hegemonic in character, and its claim to dominance was based on a power ... More »
15. Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy
By Judith Brown
A new edition of this widely used text covers the last two centuries of Indian history, concluding with an epilogue written from the perspective of the 1990s. It thematically and analytically discusses the emergence of India as one of the world's largest democracies and one of the most ... More »
16. Women in Modern India
The author traces the history of Indian women from the nineteenth century under colonial rule, to the twentieth century after Independence. She begins with the reform movement, established by men to educate women, and demonstrates how education changed their lives, enabling them to take part in public life. ... More »
17. This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India
By Ramachandra Guha; Madhav Gadgil
Ecologist Madhav Gadgil and historian Ramachandra Guha offer fresh perspectives both on the ecological history of India and on theoretical issues of interest to environmental historians regardless of geographical specialization. Juxtaposing data from India with the ecological literature on lifestyles as diverse as those of modern Americans ... More »
18. An Economic History of India
By Dietmar Rothermund | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01
Much has been written on the Indian economy but this is the first major attempt to present India's economic history as a continuous process, and to place the development of agriculture, industry and currency in a political and historical context. More »
19. The Economic History of India, 1857-2010
From the end of the eighteenth century, two distinct global processes began to transform livelihoods and living conditions in the South Asia region. These were the rise of British colonial rule and globalization, that is, the integration of the region in the emerging world markets for goods, capital, ... More »
20. The Grammar of Caste: Economic Discrimination in Contemporary India
Is the caste system disappearing? Are traditional hierarchies being replaced by competing equalities? Do globalization and liberalization automatically result in diminishing disparities? Are modern labour markets intrinsically meritocratic and efficient? Challenging the dominant discourse and demolishing various myths, this book provides answers to these and other critical questions ... More »
21. To Kill A Democracy: India's Passage to Despotism
By Debasish Roy Chowdhury; John Keane
India is heralded as the world's largest democracy. Yet, there is now growing alarm about its democratic health. To Kill a Democracy gets to the heart of the matter. Combining poignant life stories with sharp scholarly insight, it rejects the belief that India was once a beacon ... More »
22. The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity
By Amartya Sen
In sixteen linked essays, Nobel Prize--winning economist Amartya Sen discusses India's intellectual and political heritage and how its argumentative tradition is vital for the success of its democracy and secular politics. The Argumentative Indian is "a bracing sweep through aspects of Indian history and culture, and a tempered ... More »
23. Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy
A riveting account of how a popularly elected leader has steered the world's largest democracy toward authoritarianism and intolerance Over the past two decades, thanks to Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalism has been coupled with a form of national-populism that has ensured its success at the polls, first ... More »
24. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India
When thinking of India, it is hard not to think of caste. In academic and common parlance alike, caste has become a central symbol for India, marking it as fundamentally different from other places while expressing its essence. Nicholas Dirks argues that caste is, in fact, neither an ... More »
25. The Partition of India
By Gurharpal Singh; Ian Talbot
The British divided and quit India in 1947. The partition of India and the creation of Pakistan uprooted entire communities and left unspeakable violence in its trail. This volume tells the story of partition through the events that led up to it, the terrors that accompanied it, to ... More »
26. India Today: Economy, Politics and Society
By Stuart Corbridge; John Harriss; Craig Jeffrey
Twenty years ago India was still generally thought of as an archetypal developing country, home to the largest number of poor people of any country in the world, and beset by problems of low economic growth, casteism and violent religious conflict. Now India is being feted as an ... More »
27. India After Gandhi Revised and Updated Edition: The History of the World's Largest Democracy
From one of the subcontinent's most important and controversial writers comes this definitive history of post-Partition India, published on the 60th anniversary of Independence Told in lucid and beautiful prose, the story of India's wild ride toward and since Independence is a riveting one. Taking full advantage ... More »
28. Rethinking Democracy
Rethinking Democracy provides a unique insight into India's experience as the world's largest democracy. Covering democratic theory, the state, civil society, participation and the search for global justice, leading political theorist Rajni Kothari evaluates what this experience means for the very idea of democracy. ... More »
29. India's New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform
Today India's middle class numbers more than 250 million people and is growing rapidly. Public reports have focused mainly on the emerging group's consumer potential, while global views of India's new economy range from excitement about market prospects to anxieties over outsourcing of service sector jobs. Yet the ... More »
30. Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600-1850
By Prasannan Parthasarathi | 60% Off
Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not provides a striking new answer to the classic question of why Europe industrialized from the late eighteenth century and Asia did not. Drawing significantly from the case of India, Prasannan Parthasarathi shows that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the ... More »
31. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century
A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India is the most comprehensive textbook yet for undergraduate and postgraduate students. It introduces students to original sources such as ancient texts, artefacts, inscriptions and coins, illustrating how historians construct history on their basis. Its clear and balanced explanation of concepts ... More »
32. India in the Persianate Age: 1000-1765
A sweeping, magisterial new history of India from the middle ages to the arrival of the British The Indian subcontinent might seem a self-contained world. Protected by vast mountains and seas, it has created its own religions, philosophies and social systems. And yet this ancient land experienced ... More »
33. Gandhi's Rise to Power: Indian Politics 1915-1922
By Judith Brown
Dr Brown presents a political study of the first clearly defined period in Mahatma Gandhi's Indian career, from 1915 to 1922. The period began with Gandhi's return from South Africa as a stranger to Indian politics, witnessed his dramatic assertion of leadership in the Indian National Congress of ... More »
34. Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta
What happens when a distant colonial power tries to tame an unfamiliar terrain in the world's largest tidal delta? This history of dramatic ecological changes in the Bengal Delta from 1760 to 1920 involves land, water and humans, tracing the stories and struggles that link them together. Pushing ... More »
35. India and the British Empire
By Douglas M. Peers; Nandini Gooptu
South Asian History has enjoyed a remarkable renaissance over the past thirty years. Its historians are not only producing new ways of thinking about the imperial impact and legacy on South Asia, but also helping to reshape the study of imperial history in general. The essays in ... More »
36. A Cultural History of India
By A. L. Basham
This book, edited by the well-known historian A. L. Basham, presents a comprehensive survey of Indian culture, covering such aspects as religion, philosophy, social organization, literature, art. architecture, music and science. It includes a special section dealing with the influence of Indian civilization on the rest of the ... More »
37. Kashmir
Since 1947-48, when India and Pakistan fought their first war over Kashmir, it has been reduced to an endlessly disputed territory. As a result, the people of this region and its rich history are often forgotten. This short introduction untangles the complex issue of Kashmir to help readers ... More »
38. Freedom and Destiny: Gender, Family, and Popular Culture in India
This book engages with everyday life and popular culture in India. It subjects the popular media to the sociologist's critical gaze, probing for insights and reflections on the relations of the sexes and the dynamics of family life in contemporary India. More »
39. Drowned and Dammed: Colonial Capitalism and Flood Control in Eastern India
This book explores the idea and practice of flood control and argues that this is a part of a political agenda, deeply implicated in the social, economic, and political calculations of capitalism in general and colonialism in particular. It argues for a comprehensive reconsideration of the debate on ... More »
40. Brand New Nation: Capitalist Dreams and Nationalist Designs in Twenty-First-Century India
Brand New Nation captures a spectacular new moment in the life of the nation-state: its relentless transformation into an investment destination for global capital. More »
41. Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History
By Sudesh Vaid; Kumkum Sangari
This collection fills a very long felt need, a fact which is reinforced by the generally very high quality of the contributions and the fast-growing reputation in international feminist circles of many of the authors.- Arjun Appadurai, University of Pennsylvania The political and social life of India ... More »
42. The Emergence of Feminism in India, 1850-1920
By Padma Anagol
Grounded in a variety of rich and diverse source materials such as periodicals meant for women and edited by women, song and cookbooks, book reviews and court records, the author of this pioneering study mobilises claims for the existence of an Indian feminism in the nineteenth century. Anagol ... More »
43. Fields Of Protest: Women's Movement in India
By Raka Ray
The women's movement in India has a long and rich history in which millions of ordinary women live, work, and struggle to survive in order to remake their family, home, and social lives. Whether fighting for safe contraception, literacy, water, and electricity or resisting sexual harassment, a vibrant ... More »
44. India: Emerging Power
For years, Americans have seen India as a giant but inept state. That negative image is now obsolete. After a decade of drift and uncertainty, India is taking its expected place as one of the three major states of Asia. Its pluralist, secular democracy has allowed the rise ... More »
45. The Mughal Emperors: and the Islamic Dynasties of India, Iran and Central Asia 1206 -1925
This book explores the world of the Mughal Emperors, who ruled over some of the finest expressions of Islamic civilization In the West, 'Mogul' refers to a person of great influence and power. The term derives from the people who, initially under Chingiz (Genghis) Khan, had a ... More »
46. Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire
The past twenty years have seen a proliferation of specialist scholarship on the period of India's transition to colonialism. This volume provides a synthesis of some of the most important themes to emerge from recent work and seeks in particular to reassess the role of Indians in the ... More »
47. Pakistan: A Hard Country
By Anatol Lieven | Used Price: 80% Off
In the past decade Pakistan has become a country of immense importance to its region, the United States, and the world. With almost 200 million people, a 500,000-man army, nuclear weapons, and a large diaspora in Britain and North America, Pakistan is central to the hopes of jihadis ... More »
48. The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics
By Ayesha Jalal
Established as a homeland for India s Muslims in 1947, Pakistan s tumultuous history has unfolded in the vortex of dire regional and international conflicts. Beset by assassinations, coups, ethnic strife, and the breakaway of Bangladesh in 1971, its quest for identity and survival has led too often ... More »
49. Pakistan: A Very Short Introduction
By Pippa Virdee
What is Pakistan? The name refers to a seventy-year-old post-colonial product of the bloodiest partition of territory and population that accompanied the end of British empire in South Asia. But the region of the Indus Valley has a four-thousand-year-old history, and was the site of one of the ... More »
50. Pakistan: A New History
By Ian Talbot
If Pakistan is to preserve all that is good about its country - the generosity and hospitality of its people, the dynamism of its youth - it must face the deterioration of its social and political institutions. Sidestepping easy headlines to identify Pakistan's true dangers, this volume revisits ... More »
51. A Princely Affair: The Accession and Integration of the Princely States of Pakistan, 1947-1955
West Pakistan, on 15 August 1947, was less than half its present size. Nearly a year of negotiations, arguments, threats, and even chance, brought nine princely states into the Pakistani fold. Thereafter followed a long and staggered process of integration. Using hitherto unused and inaccessible primary sources, ... More »
52. Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India
This book examines how the idea of Pakistan was articulated and debated in the public sphere and how popular enthusiasm was generated for its successful achievement, especially in the crucial province of UP (now Uttar Pradesh) in the last decade of British colonial rule in India. It argues ... More »
53. The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience
Pakistan was born as the creation of elite Urdu-speaking Muslims who sought to govern a state that would maintain their dominance. After rallying non-Urdu speaking leaders around him, Jinnah imposed a unitary definition of the new nation state that obliterated linguistic diversity. This centralisation - 'justified' by the ... More »
54. Military Inc. - Inside Pakistan's Military Economy
Pakistan is a strategic ally of the US in the 'war on terror'. It is the third largest recipient of US aid in the world. Yet Pakistan is a state run by its army and intelligence service. Operating in the shadows, Pakistan's military industrial complex owns and controls ... More »
55. Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military
Among U.S. allies in the war against terrorism, Pakistan cannot be easily characterized as either friend or foe. Nuclear-armed Pakistan is an important center of radical Islamic ideas and groups. Since 9/11, the selective cooperation of president General Pervez Musharraf in sharing intelligence with the United States and ... More »
56. Making Sense of Pakistan
Pakistan's transformation from a country once projected as a model of Muslim enlightenment to a state now threatened by an Islamist take over dominates the headlines. Many account for the change by pointing to Pakistan's controversial partnership with the United States since 9/11; others see it as a ... More »
57. Muslims against the Muslim League: Critiques of the Idea of Pakistan
By Ali Usman Qasmi; Megan Eaton Robb
The popularity of the Muslim League and its idea of Pakistan has been measured in terms of its success in achieving the goal of a sovereign state in the Muslim majority regions of North West and North East India. It led to an oversight of Muslim leaders and ... More »
58. Economic Growth with Social Justice: Collected Writings of Mahbub ul Haq
By Khadija Haq
The book traces the evolution of Mahbub ul Haq's thinking on development, and highlights its impact on global, regional, and national policy debates. It situates the origins and significance of Haq's development philosophy focusing on social justice. The introduction to the volume explains Haq's reasons for moving away ... More »
59. The Women's Movement in Pakistan: Activism, Islam and Democracy
By Ayesha Khan
The military rule of General Zia ul-Haq, former President of Pakistan, had significant political repercussions for the country. Islamization policies were far more pronounced and control over women became the key marker of the state's adherence to religious norms. Women's rights activists mobilized as a result, campaigning to ... More »
60. State and Nation-Building in Pakistan: Beyond Islam and Security
By Roger D. Long; Yunas Samad; Gurharpal Singh; Ian Talbot
Religion, violence, and ethnicity are all intertwined in the history of Pakistan. The entrenchment of landed interests, operationalized through violence, ethnic identity, and power through successive regimes has created a system of 'authoritarian clientalism.' This book offers comparative, historicist, and multidisciplinary views on the role of identity politics ... More »
61. Speaking Like a State: Language and Nationalism in Pakistan
By Alyssa Ayres
Alyssa Ayres' fascinating study examines Pakistan's troubled history by exploring the importance of culture to political legitimacy. Early leaders selected Urdu as the natural symbol of the nation's great cultural past, but due to its limited base great efforts would be required to make it truly national. This ... More »
62. The New Pakistani Middle Class
Pakistan's presence in the outside world is dominated by images of religious extremism and violence. These images-and the narratives that interpret them-inform events in the international realm, but they also twist back around to shape local class politics. In The New Pakistani Middle Class, Ammara Maqsood focuses on ... More »
63. Guardians of God: Inside the Religious Mind of the Pakistani Taliban
This book is an account of the emergence and key events related to the origin and expansion of Pakistani Taliban since 2001, with a focus on the role of religion in their actions, policies, and worldviews. The author brings to light rare insight into the ideological basis of ... More »
64. Issues in Pakistan's Economy: A Political Economy Perspective
This book is about understanding Pakistan's structural transformation over six decades in a political economy framework. The author examines how and where such transformations have taken place, in the economy, society, in class and gender relations, in manifestations of consumerism and culture, and in other ways. He assesses ... More »
65. Pakistan: The Economy of an Elitist State
This insightful analysis into the prevailing economic situation in Pakistan has three distinguishing features. It is an exhaustive, analytical history of economic development in Pakistan during the last ?fty years; it provides an explanation of Pakistans economic performance in the political context, and compares it with other South ... More »
66. The Press in Chains
By Zamir Niazi
This book investigates the nature of curbs and censorship imposed by successive governments on the press during British rule in India, and during the first two-three decades of Pakistan's independence. This well-researched book highlights measures taken by various governments against press freedom till the end of the Ayub ... More »
67. Pakistani Women: Multiple Locations and Competing Narratives
By Sadaf Ahmad
The different chapters cover an entire range of localities, from rural to urban settings, and from small town to Diaspora. Most of the chapters are driven by ethnographic data, while some are more theoretical. Yet despite all this diversity of time, place and approach, a number of cross ... More »
68. Pakistan's Foreign Policy 1947-2016: A Concise History
By Abdul Sattar
Written with the express purpose of providing a reference book for students of history, political science, international relations, and Pakistan Studies, this book offers an objective history of policy stances along with the rationale behind decisions made by Pakistani state leaders. It provides an insight into the making, ... More »
69. Constitutional and Political History of Pakistan
By Hamid Khan
This book analyses constitutional development in Pakistan from its conception to the present day. It provides a case-by-case account of constitution making in Pakistan, and the inclusion of all pertinent documentation makes this essential reading for the student of law and politics. It also provides a liberal, humanitarian ... More »
70. Punjab and the War of Independence 1857-1858: From Collaboration to Resistance
There is a historiographical silence about the role of the Punjab during the War of Independence. Historians have generally employed the elite approach or the 'top-down approach' while writing the history of the war. Since the elite, including the rajas, feudal lords, and nawabs had collaborated with the ... More »
71. Gambling with Violence: State Outsourcing of War in Pakistan and India
In Gambling with Violence, Yelena Biberman tackles a global problem that is particularly consequential for Pakistan and India: state outsourcing of violence to ordinary civilians, criminals, and ex-insurgents. Why would these countries gamble with their own national security by outsourcing violence - arming nonstate actors inside their own ... More »
72. The Culture of Power and Governance in Pakistan
By Ilhan Niaz
The Culture of Power and Governance of Pakistan attempts to explain Pakistan's crisis of governance in historical and philosophical terms. It argues that South Asia's indigenous orientation towards the exercise of power has reasserted itself and produced a regression in the behavior of the ruling elite. This has ... More »
73. 1971 A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh
The war of 1971 was the most significant geopolitical event in the Indian subcontinent since its partition in 1947. At one swoop, it led to the creation of Bangladesh, and it tilted the balance of power between India and Pakistan steeply in favor of India. The Line of ... More »
74. Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971
Fought between India and what was then East and West Pakistan, the war of 1971 led to the creation of Bangladesh, where it is remembered as the War of Liberation. For India, the war represents a triumphant settling of scores with Pakistan. If the war is acknowledged in ... More »
75. Understanding Bangladesh
By S Mahmud Ali
Bangladesh, a Muslim majority nation with a population of some 154 million people, receives little notice in the West, other than when political upheaval or natural disasters bring it to our attention. In Understanding Bangladesh, an account of the political and economic experiences of the Bangladeshi state and ... More »
76. A History of Bangladesh
Bangladesh did not exist as an independent state until 1971. Willem van Schendel's state-of-the-art history navigates the extraordinary twists and turns that created modern Bangladesh through ecological disaster, colonialism, partition, a war of independence and cultural renewal. In this revised and updated edition, Van Schendel offers a fascinating ... More »
77. Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society
By David Lewis
Since its hard-won independence from Pakistan, Bangladesh has been ravaged by economic and environmental disasters. Only recently has the country begun to emerge as a fragile, but functioning, parliamentary democracy. The story of Bangladesh, told through the pages of this concise and readable book, is a truly remarkable ... More »
78. The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide
By Gary J Bass
This magnificent history provides the first full account of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger's secret support for Pakistan in 1971 as it committed shocking atrocities in Bangladesh--which led to war between India and Pakistan, shaped the fate of Asia, and left major strategic consequences for the world today. ... More »
79. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History
By Thomas Barfield | Used Price: 70% Off
Afghanistan traces the historic struggles and the changing nature of political authority in this volatile region of the world, from the Mughal Empire in the sixteenth century to the Taliban resurgence today. Thomas Barfield introduces readers to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic ... More »
80. Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War
From 1979 to 1989 a million Soviet troops engaged in a devastating war in Afghanistan that claimed 50,000 casualties--and the youth and humanity of many tens of thousands more. Creating controversy and outrage when it was first published in the USSR--it was called by reviewers there a "slanderous ... More »
81. The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley
Of the many battlefields on which U.S. troops and intelligence operatives fought in Afghanistan, one remote corner of the country stands as a microcosm of the American campaign: the Pech and its tributary valleys in Kunar and Nuristan. The area's rugged, steep terrain and thick forests made it ... More »
82. The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War
The groundbreaking investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America's longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban's recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, ... More »
83. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
By Ahmed Rashid
Correspondent Ahmed Rashid brings the shadowy world of the Taliban-the world's most extreme and radical Islamic organization-into sharp focus in this enormously insightful book. He offers the only authoritative account of the Taliban available to English-language readers, explaining the Taliban's rise to power, its impact on Afghanistan and ... More »
84. No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes
By Anand Gopal | Used Price: 50% Off
Told through the lives of three Afghans, the stunning tale of how the United States had triumph in sight in Afghanistan—and then brought the Taliban back from the deadIn a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces in vivid detail the lives of three Afghans caught in America’s war on terror. He ... More »
85. Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-89
As former ambassador to Moscow, Rodric Braithwaite brings unique insights to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The story has been distorted not only by Cold War propaganda but also by the myths of the nineteenth century Great Game. It moves from the high politics of the Kremlin to ... More »
86. Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan
In the spring of 1839, Britain invaded Afghanistan for the first time. Nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured through the high mountain passes and re-established on the throne Shah Shuja ul-Mulk. On the way in, the British faced little resistance. But after two years ... More »
87. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden
By Steve Coll
Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives the full inside story of the CIA's covert funding of an Islamic jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how ... More »
88. Afghanistan
By Louis Dupree
Afghanistan, written in 1973, looks at this age old land and country as it was before the Soviet invasion. It contains two epilogues; one written in 1978 and the other in 1980 right before the Soviet invasion. Afghanistan traces the development of this country from tribal and politically ... More »
89. A History of Nepal
Nepal emerged as a unified state over two hundred years ago, centred on the Kathmandu Valley with its two thousand years of urban civilisation. While John Whelpton's history focuses on the period since the overthrow of the Rana family autocracy in 1950-51, the early chapters are devoted to ... More »
90. Revolution in Nepal: An Anthropological and Historical Approach to the People's War
Revolution in Nepal is a comprehensive study of the People's War in Nepal that was waged by the Maoist party. The chapters are based on extensive fieldwork conducted at the grass-roots level, covering the country's rural areas from Khotang to Jumla, before, during, and after the revolutionary movement. ... More »
91. Nepal in Transition: From People's War to Fragile Peace
By Sebastian von Einsiedel; David M. Malone; Suman Pradhan
Since emerging in 2006 from a ten-year Maoist insurgency, the 'People's War', Nepal has struggled with the difficult transition from war to peace, from autocracy to democracy, and from an exclusionary and centralized state to a more inclusive and federal one. The present volume, drawing on both international ... More »
92. Remaking Buddhism for Medieval Nepal: The Fifteenth-Century Reformation of Newar Buddhism
Will Tuladhar-Douglas sheds new light on an important branch of Mahayana Buddhism and establishes the existence, character and causes of a renaissance of Buddhism in the fifteenth century in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. He provides the basis for the historical study of Newar Buddhism as one distinct ... More »
93. Maoists at the Hearth: Everyday Life in Nepal's Civil War
By Judith Pettigrew; David N. Gellner
The Maoist insurgency in Nepal lasted from 1996 to 2006, and at the pinnacle of their armed success the Maoists controlled much of the countryside. Maoists at the Hearth, which is based on ethnographic research that commenced more than a decade before the escalation of the civil war ... More »
94. Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal
By Sarah LeVine; David N. Gellner
Rebuilding Buddhism describes in evocative detail the experiences and achievements of Nepalis who have adopted Theravada Buddhism. This form of Buddhism was introduced into Nepal from Burma and Sri Lanka in the 1930s, and its adherents have struggled for recognition and acceptance ever since. With its focus on ... More »
95. Buddhist Extremists and Muslim Minorities: Religious Conflict in Contemporary Sri Lanka
2009 brought the end of the protracted civil war in Sri Lanka, and observers hoped to see the re-establishment of harmonious religious and ethnic relations among the various communities in the country. Immediately following the war's end, however, almost 300,000 Tamil people in the Northern Province were detained ... More »
96. Aid, Peacebuilding and the Resurgence of War: Buying Time in Sri Lanka
By Sarah Holt
As one of South Asia's oldest democracies Sri Lanka is a critical case to examine the limits of a liberal peace, peacebuilding and external engagement in the settlement of civil wars. Based on nine years of research, and more than 100 interviews with those affected by the war, ... More »
97. Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth-Century Sri Lanka: Portuguese Imperialism in a Buddhist Land
When the Portuguese arrived on the shores of Sri Lanka in 1506, they opened an era in which religious identity became central to struggles for power on the island. During the reign of King Bhuvanekabahu VII (1521-51), they became the first European empire to dominate Lankan politics. This ... More »
98. Nationalism, Development and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka
This book examines the relationship between ethnic conflict and economic development in modern Sri Lanka. Drawing on a historically informed political sociology, it explores how the economic and the ethnic have encountered one another, focusing in particular on the phenomenon of Sinhala nationalism. In doing so, the book ... More »
99. Sri Lanka in the Modern Age: A History
Sri Lanka in the Modern Age recounts the modern history of the island in an accessible yet unconventional manner. Where other histories have tended to focus on the state's failure to accommodate the needs and demands of minority communities, Wickramasinghe places their claims alongside the political, social and ... More »
100. Islam and Democracy in the Maldives: Interrogating Reformist Islam’s Role in Politics
By Azim Zahir
This book examines Islam's relationship to democratization in the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives. It explores how and why an electoral democracy based in a constitution that has many liberal features but also Islam-based limitations, especially lack of religious freedom, emerged in the country by 2009. In ... More »
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