Page 105 - Book Reviews

'Dissent on Aadhaar' is essential reading for believers and sceptics alike

A collection of 15 well-argued essays is essential reading for believers and sceptics alike, says Vipul Mudgal

The single-minded parivar

The author has provided well-documented details of RSS and its style of working, but he fails to evaluate the RSS on the basis of the facts mentioned in his own study

AI's dystopian future

Both authors go well beyond such cautionary tales and have specific (though different) suggested plans of action to deal with this frightening future

Debating the Muslim identity

Ms Jalil is against the idea of conflating a community and its mores with a certain dress code or food habit

Lost in Arabia

Having gone through over 350 pages, we cannot but wonder why the author and his publisher felt this personal account needed to be published

Europe's 'golden age'

European leaders should read The Global Age to be reminded of the incredible progress of the last 70 years

Turn to fiction to appreciate #MeToo

It does not feel reductive to read fiction through this prism

The Epic City review: Choudhury's book offers distinctive view of Calcutta

An NRI returns to the declining city of his youth and presents a distinctive if not necessarily epic picture

Society's acid tests

Ms Qureshi's Being Reshma sucks you into the trauma, the pain and the hopelessness an acid attack victim suffers day in and day out - and in the end, it makes you want to make a difference

Managing the Hydra

Had the book not been technically adequate, one could have said that the authors have tried to bite off more than they can chew

Javanka Inc

Much of the information in this book is not new but taken together, the facts suggest a Third World regime than the rule-based democracy of the world's most powerful nation

Just a civil servant

In his book, Anil Swarup narrates a host of stories surrounding his assignments, some of them linked to historic moments in contemporary Indian politics, such as the demolition of the Babri Masjid

The elliptical Mueller report

The Mueller report is hardly pleasurable to read, on textual as well as emotional grounds. It is ill-making about the amorality of an administration

Citizen Raj: Surjit Bhalla's book on polls offers a platter of tasty facts

His treatment of developments in all but the last two decades is cursory and at times not convincing

Testing cultural boundaries

Ms Gokhale speaks of the clothing quite like her reworking of Hamlet: It is as much her own as it is Shakespeare's; she has every right to re-write it from her own perspective

When the US kept immigrants out

What's most chilling about Mr Dobbs's book is how his account of the early years of World War II echoes our politics today

The UN's political record

Two major chapters of the book cover the innovative compromises that strengthened UN peacekeeping operations and military actions after the end of the Cold War

Debating austerity

At the crux of the book is the notion that when governments are facing an unsustainable debt position, it is much better to rein back deficits through spending cuts rather than tax increases

2008: The first responders' view

Firefighting is a brief account of that crucial moment by three of the most important actors

Finding Radha: A collection of essays filters her story via multiple lenses

Radha is not worshipped out of fear, nor does she have the power to redeem sinners or bestow boons