Page 144 - Book Reviews

Empire and extraction

Shashi Tharoor's history of the colonial era will reignite thinking on the nature of British rule in India

Before the palaces

The events in this book are unlikely to be new, but they surely make one look at them newly

The virtues of messy thinking

A little bit of messiness - both physical and otherwise - is essential for unleashing creativity in us, the organisations we work for, and the societies we inhabit

Rah Rah, Raghav

Kannan captures the warmth, fun and struggle of a small organisation trying to stand on its feet very well. But she falters when the little production house becomes a media conglomerate

Alan Greenspan as 'politician'

Was Alan Greenspan motivated by politics more than economics?

Mr 360's all-round story

It is only fitting then that this passage of de Villiers devotion finds a mention right at the beginning of his autobiography

The wood wide web of trees

A German forester makes an eloquent case for reconsidering man's relationship with forests as living, communicating entities, beyond the narrow economic view of plantations for harvest

Why India needs the Pak Army

The message - important for India - is that the Pakistani Taliban isn't going to win power in Pakistan. It will continue to create mayhem - sometimes with the support of the Pakistani military and som

Deceit and empire

Finding itself will come as no great surprise to Indian readers but this very readable book presents much new evidence and offers some fascinating pen portraits of leading British statesmen

Dynasty as a positive force

Jayalalithaa, Mayawati and Naveen Patnaik do not have known successors. No surprise, these are also areas where the BJP believes it has long-term prospects to consolidate its position

Collusion and collision during the Emergency

The Emergency, imposed by prime minister Indira Gandhi between June 25, 1975 and January 18, 1977, remains one of the darkest periods of Indian politics

Karl and his Marxism

Like all intellectual legacies, Marx's work remains open to new interpretation

Fragile splendour

A book of photographs reflects the magnificence of the Nepal Himalayas but also highlights its ecological vulnerabilities

Cyber syndromes

A 'cyberpsychologist' has written a thought-provoking book on how the internet is altering our behaviour in fundamental ways

Lost opportunities in aid diplomacy

With the Western world rethinking the role of aid, the leading Southern nations need to ensure they work the aid money judiciously

The irrelevance of Security Council

Hardeep Singh Puri's book 'Perilous Interventions' focuses on military interventions in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen

Secularism unbound

The book raises important questions and compiles numerous views and contestations

The anti-Clinton brigade

Through the 1980s, assassination - or accidental deaths - of political leaders in the sub-continent was a common affair. At the very beginning of the decade, Sanjay Gandhi, the heir apparent of the Ne

India in cliches

Human factors in the automation debate

A book cogently argues that the rise of artificial intelligence need not threaten jobs if humans learn to work with, rather than against, machines