The summer of 2010 was a bummer for many reasons. Heat waves stewed the East Coast into submission. Harvey Pekar and Tony Judt died. WikiLeaks dumped so many anxiety-inducing classified Afghan war documents that this sprig of dialogue from Gravity's Rainbow seemed freshly plucked: "Everything is some kind of plot, man."That summer's most sinister happening, the troll under the bridge to sanity, was the Deepwater Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The writer Eula Biss was home with an infant son in the wake of that mean summer. When she learned that the plastic on her baby's mattress was possibly toxic, it was one shred of paranoia too many."If our government can't keep phthalates out of my baby's bedroom and parabens out of his lotion," Ms Biss cried aloud to her husband, "and 210 million gallons of crude oil and 1.84 million gallons of dispersant out of the Gulf of Mexico, for the love of God, then what is it good for?"Her husband took a deep breath. He said, "I hear you." He add

A needleful of scepticism to deliver us

The Impulse Society bears a generally reformist message; its argument would be clearer if its definitions were sharper

Market-driven behaviour

India's Ambassador to Israel has written an unusual and fascinating account of an Indian encounter with the troubled city of Jerusalem

Book review: An inheritance of loss

Business Standard

The Booker shortlisted author talks about its impact on his life and the authors he admires the most over a traditional Bengali meal

Lunch with BS: Neel Mukherjee

Everybody knows Malala Yousafzai and the story of the girl who stood up for the right to education, was shot by the Taliban for her pains and miraculously survived. So when I picked up the autobiography of this 16-year-old girl, I expected to find a glorified story of her trials and tribulations. That it certainly was. But, unexpectedly, it also turned out to be an absorbing account of overlapping narratives - of a country (Pakistan) undergoing change, of a family whose values of free thinking and integrity brought it to the forefront of the war against terrorism, of a beautiful father-daughter relationship to which most girls will relate, and of a girl's coming of age.Starting with a prologue in which Ms Yousafzai reflects upon the fateful day that began just like any other, the narrative builds momentum towards the shooting, ending with the refrain, "I am Malala and this is my story."Written together with Patricia McCormick, an American journalist and two-time National Book Award fin

Malala's teachable moments

Neither Wolf Hall nor Bring Up the Bodies is the Hilary Mantel book most relevant to The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, her new volume of short stories. Instead, the germane book is her 2003 memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. That book describes a woman who is passive, illness-plagued and spooked. The narrators of these stories are much more like Ms Mantel's description of herself than like the ironclad Machiavellians who dominate her Thomas Cromwell trilogy-in-progress.Set in recent times, this new book's stories have narrators much more outwardly meek and inwardly turbulent than the murderous royals and puppeteers so beloved in her historical fiction.The book's opener is "Sorry to Disturb", though it was first published as "Someone to Disturb" and billed as a memoir in the London Review of Books in 2009; that small title change heightens the faux meekness. In any case, the piece uses the autobiographical fact that Ms Mantel once lived in Saudi Arabia as the wife of a geologist, at a t

A calm exterior, sure, but there's more going on

It has only been just over a month since "Operation Protective Edge" came to an end in the Holy Land. At least 2,200 (if not more) Gazans died in the 50-day conflict (July 8 to August 26), as did 66 Israeli soldiers and six civilians. Once again, the oldest conflict in West Asia made its way to news headlines across the world in all its ferocity and viciousness.Edward Said on Palestine is essentially a reaction to these latest tragic events. Published by LeftWord, this slim volume of 70 pages has been produced primarily to express solidarity with the Palestinian people, especially the hapless natives of the Gaza Strip. As the prominent Indian Marxist intellectual Vijay Prashad notes in his introduction: "As a small talisman, here is the work of the great Palestinian intellectual Edward Said (1935-2003). We have chosen two of his essays, both highly critical of the situation of the Palestinians - under Israeli occupation, and a hapless leadership. The details of the suppression are not

Thus spake Said ...

The economics profession has not, to say the least, covered itself in glory these past six years. Hardly any economists predicted the 2008 crisis - and the handful who did tended to be people who also predicted crises that didn't happen. More significant, many and arguably most economists were claiming, right up to the moment of collapse, that nothing like this could even happen.Furthermore, once crisis struck economists seemed unable to agree on a response. They'd had 75 years since the Great Depression to figure out what to do if something similar happened again, but the profession was utterly divided when the moment of truth arrived.In Seven Bad Ideas, Jeff Madrick, a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine and a frequent writer on matters economic, argues that the professional failures since 2008 were rooted in decades of intellectual malfeasance.As a practicing and, I'd claim, mainstream economist myself, I'm tempted to quibble. How "mainstream" are the bad ideas he attacks? How

The dismal science

A masterly survey of Indo-US relations suggests that the countries may never be allies but they will always be friends

Divided we stand: Provocative book says India, US will never be allies

I have a confession to make. I have not read Hillary Mantel's Booker-winning Bring Up the Bodies, the second in her trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, though I have read the first, Wolf Hall. Perhaps it was the subject matter, but the ponderous dealings of Henry VIII's court failed to enthuse me. I was pretty done in by the end of the first book and learnt to live with the suspicion that I had missed out on something great when the second book arrived.The back-to-back Bookers did not help. You know how we Indians have this anal relationship to the Booker. I told myself that I would get around to reading Mantel with the last of the trilogy, the in-process The Mirror and the Light. But even as her Cromwell engine hums in the background, Mantel keeps popping on the scene with shorter works that play, incautiously, to the gallery.Early last year, she wrote an essay for the London Review of Books (LRB) in which she infamously described Kate Middleton as "a shop-window mannequin, with no persona

Why does Mantel bring up the bodies?

As independent India's 11th Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) from January 2008 to May 2013, Vinod Rai came under intense and vituperative attack from ruling party politicians. None of his predecessors had to go through the kind of trauma that he had to suffer when ministers and even the prime minister accused him of overstepping the CAG's mandated brief. There were charges that his office had leaked draft reports on irregularities in coal-block allocations and suggestions that the CAG was wrongly adjudicating on policy instead of merely auditing a government department for the possibility of financial irregularities.Mr Rai did try to clarify his stance on each of these issues and even wrote to the prime minister. But the attack against him became more vicious as the months went by and the CAG's reports made bigger headlines that caused the government major embarrassment. Indeed Mr Rai spent the last few months of his tenure wondering where he went right or where he was wrong. In t

Not just an accountant's angst

India and China, and their supposed common geo-strategic interests may be all the rage among media analysts, but what's the practical reality of collaborating with the Middle Kingdom? If you are looking for answers The Silk Road Rediscovered is a good place to start. The book has been written by Anil K Gupta, Girija Pande and Haiyan Wang. Ms Wang and Mr Gupta have been researching, writing and consulting on topics related to China and India for over 10 years now. Mr Pande was, until recently, chairman, Asia-Pacific, for Tata Consultancy Services. With deep exposure to the big picture and ground realities of the business environment in China, the trio decided to collaborate to bring out this book.Though it preceded Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to India by some months, the authors say the timing of this book is just about right. India needs to launch an infrastructure revolution just like China did starting in the mid-1990s. This demands large amounts of capital and machinery. Ch

Wealth creation on the new Silk Road

Given that the Niyamgiri Hills, sacred to Odisha tribals, do have rich bauxite deposits, would it be fair to forget that the deposits exist, just because they are on tribal land?

What price development?

Henry Kissinger's latest book is probably one of his most magisterial works in recent years. He has brought together his familiarity with history, in particular European history, the principles of statecraft and diplomacy, to weave together an absorbing narrative about the international order or, as more relevant today, the lack of order. Indian readers will be especially interested in the section on India in the chapter titled "The Multiplicity of Asia", where he explores the Indian world view as contrasted with other versions.At the heart of this volume is a fairly straightforward proposition: that international order has historically been maintained either by a powerful hegemon leading an empire - which may be known by different labels at different times in history but essentially involves setting the rules of the game that others have to generally follow - or through a concert of major powers who agree on rules of behaviour that impose collective restraint, and rely on precisely th

Mr Kissinger's world order

The Japanese writer's 13th novel is not intended to be read so much as to be performed in the theatre 
of the reader's mind

Murakami in chiaroscuro

The 1920s trial of Thompson-Bywaters is the subject of Sarah Waters' new book

Weaving a life of love and death in London

Many years ago in 2000, Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) became a big hit on STAR Plus. It revived the fortunes of the Rupert Murdoch-controlled STAR India after more than eight years in the country. Peter Mukerjea, then chief executive officer (CEO) of STAR India, and his programming chief, Sameer Nair, worked to plan and use the opportunity created by KBC to funnel the same audience into its shows before and after KBC. As luck would have it, Balaji Telefilms, the firm run by actor Jeetendra Kapoor's daughter Ektaa and wife Shobhaa, was on a high with Koshish and Hum Paanch on Zee TV. Ektaa conceived and sold the idea of Kyunkii Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kahanii Ghar Ghar Kii. Both of these dailies, mounted on elaborate sets and with a huge cast, proved to be hugely successful on the resurging STAR Plus. They ran for a full eight years, before being pulled off air. Ektaa became a household name and Balaji the darling of the stock markets.The year 2000 is also when yours truly first start

Kyunkii writer bhi kabhi fan tha

Images of Islamic militants beheading Western hostages over the past few days have horrified world opinion and dramatically reminded us that radical Islam is flourishing across West Asia, challenging established states and placing captured territories under its own governance. In this book, Taj Hashmi has made a valiant attempt to explain Muslims' estrangement from the West and the rise of radical Islam to a bewildered and angry audience.Mr Hashmi believes that the present Islam-West confrontation is part of an ongoing 100-year war that began in 1948 with the West-sponsored creation of Israel. Since then, there have been the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya by Western forces, and threats of attack on Syria and Iran. According to Mr Hashmi, "American duplicity" is at the centre of almost every attack on Muslim interests, paving the way for a new Cold War between the West and the Muslim world. America and its allies, Mr Hashmi says, have been "ignorant, opportunistic, myopic and

Muslim angst in the modern world

India's economic growth depends on a number of complex and interlocking factors - economic reforms, programmes, implementation and proper distribution systems, besides the deliberate streamlining of socially calibrated market structures. It is creditable that the author, who is not an economist, has chosen to write a book presenting a logical analysis of the Indian economy against the socio-economic realities.He has divided the book in two parts. Part one provides a factual picture of economic reforms and part two contains suggestions for achieving 12 per cent growth in an inclusive manner.From an analysis of the Economic Surveys, the annual pre-Budget report of the state of the economy, the author contends that the Indian economy has done better in the past 20 years than in the previous 40. However, India's reforms have been far less impressive when compared with Southeast Asian countries, which have achieved double-digit growth. India has lagged, the author contends, because of "leth

Making reforms work for the poor

In 1989, Francis Fukuyama published an essay in The National Interest entitled "The End of History?" that thrust him into the centre of public debate. Although often misunderstood and maligned, its central argument was straightforward and sensible: with the collapse of communism, liberal democracy stood alone as the only form of government compatible with socio-economic modernity. Over the years since, Mr Fukuyama has continued to argue the case, and has now summed up his efforts with a two-volume magnum opus that chronicles global political development from prehistory to the present. He remains convinced that no other political system is viable in the long run, but concludes his survey with a sobering twist: liberal democracy's future is cloudy, but that is because of its own internal problems.Mr Fukuyama began the first volume, The Origins of Political Order, in 2011, by stating that the challenge for contemporary developing countries was how to "get to Denmark" - that is, how to bui

Global warning

S Frederick Starr's treatise on the history of Central Asia chronicles the lives of some of the world's greatest intellects

Enlightenment, lost and found

Book News: Check out for latest book news, reviews, book launches and more on Business Standard. Explore now for new books reviews along with books writers and novel reviews and more.

Books News: Latest Book, Book Reviews, Book Features, Book Launches | Business Standard

Check out for latest book reviews, book launches and more on Business Standard. Explore now for new books reviews along with books writers and novel reviews and more.

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