Rudrangshu Mukherjee

This is a book that should not be missed by anyone interested in the world of ancient Indian cultures

The background of Rash Behari Bose bore none of the marks of privilege and distinction that were so prominent in the career of Subhas Chandra

Olivelle has written a thought-provoking book. He has scrupulously avoided the hagiographic sources about Ashoka because he feels they contain too many uncertainties

Azad, according to Dr Habib, was not comfortable in the presence of a crowd. He sought the solitude that is conducive to scholarship

The best sections in the book are those that deal with the revolt of 1857 in Delhi

A voice of protest, of struggles and aspirations, Anandabazar Patrika embodied the spirit of a nation in the making, writes Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Datta's book made it clear that the horror of the massacre shaped the making of Gandhi and the nationalist movement he led

Nayanjot Lahiri deftly portrays the career of one of independent India's pre-eminent but little-known archaeologists

A new biography of Klaus Fuchs, the celebrated physicist who passed nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, forces readers to rethink their idea of what constitutes treason

Historical scholarship has been so preoccupied with the later nationalists - Gandhi, Patel, Nehru, Bose et al - that it has neglected, or been indifferent to, the individual who started it all.

Julia Lovell's book on Maoism is concerned with understanding the phenomenon of Maoism when it swept the globe, in some places politically and in most places ideologically and intellectually.

Hamilton has written a marvellous book about a now-forgotten figure. It will be enjoyed by all those who remember and value cricket

Richard Eaton employs rich empirical detail to demonstrate that intellectual encounters between the Sanskrit and Persian worlds were not tied to any one religion and that the two were not hostile

Rohit De's carefully crafted history shows that the people and their awareness of their own rights cannot be taken for granted or ridden roughshod by the state and political parties

Gilmour reconstructs the lives of the Britons in India with loving detail but one misses the distance that separated the rulers from the ruled

The detail in Ramachandra Guha's magisterial biography occasionally comes at the cost of interpretation and meaning

The skull of Alum Bheg should perhaps stay in England to remind 'civilised' Englishmen how their forefathers dealt with recalcitrant colonial subjects

This is a very disappointing book on a very important subject. Aurangzeb still awaits his historian

Rosie Llewellyn-Jones has written a well-researched book on Wajid Ali Shah, Awadh's ill-fated last ruler, but ignores the significant cultural context of his reign in Lucknow