Page 104 - Book Reviews

Book review: Ascetic Games busts myth around Kumbh's camera-friendly sadhus

Sadhu politics can be like Indian party politics: always dependent on rent-a-crowd

Ranjit Singh's eccentric empire

Minor irritants don't detract from Singh's research and penchant for weaving a narrative of Sikh militarism while chronicling the times of Ranjit Singh

Power play and Indian cricket

Mr Bose, who had earlier written The History of Indian Cricket, revisits that history and comes up with a new theory

Governance and power

Challenges of Governance is a treat to read with a lot in it for public policy practitioners, policy makers and thinkers.

Rebuilding the reform consensus

Puja Mehra's The Lost Decade chronicles the policy choices that provide a coherent explanation of some of the puzzles that concern us the most at present

How a dynast destroyed Syria

The book's subtitle is 'How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria,' but Dagher overemphasises the degree to which the Assads differed from other dictators in the region

Meet Jokha Alharthi, the first Arabic writer to win Man Booker Prize

Alharthi hopes that her novel, which features some quite robust characters trying to negotiate life in a patriarchal milieu, will open a "window" on Arab society

People cannot be taken for granted in democracy, says Rohit De's new book

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

Generic corruption

Book review of Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom

Lines of discord

The book confirms that at the heart of the border issue between India and China has been and continues to be Tibet

Ayn Rand's topsy-turvy legacy

Book review of Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed

GoT fans, some books for you

For those already feeling nostalgic, consider reading the books that the HBO show is based on

Book review: A dozen problems with the economy and about as many solutions

By far the best chapter in the book is "Fixing Schools" by Karthik Muralidharan

Paean to big business

For Mr Cowen, the real reason business is so unpopular is that we humans tend to anthropomorphise companies, turning corporations 'into people in our minds, and also in our hearts'

Dissecting Hindu nationalism

The book successfully demonstrates how the unprecedented electoral verdict of 2014 has played out in creating a majoritarian narrative

Animal Intimacies offers sparkling exploration of animal-human relationship

For the lucidity of the prose and the animal/human characters alone, this book is a reader's delight

Beyond the burqa

Whatever the subject matter, the one theme that runs through all these essays is that of being "othered", of being seen as something exotic and foreign, as someone who doesn't really belong

Earth's demographic myth

What is startling about their conclusions are the imminent population declines in the developing world.

Even if it ain't broken, fix it

The authors examine nine widespread corporate beliefs and practices, reveal their flaws, and offer alternative approaches

Stiglitz's prescriptions

In his book, he argues that the American system of capitalism has fallen down and needs government help to get back up again