Page 85 - Book Reviews

Hiroshima: Fallout and cover up

Fallout is a book of serious intent

The spy who loved humanity

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

Unconditional surrender, red scare: Why US dropped atomic bombs on Japan

With the Red Army suddenly deep into Manchuria, Japanese leaders were weighing evaporating options when the second bomb incinerated Nagasaki

The eye of the beholder

In a pandemic-stricken world that heightens the awareness of impermanence and uncertainty, love might be one of the few remaining frameworks to make meaning and find purpose

Jinnah's tragedy

The discussion of Kashmir in the book is, however, very brief and almost cryptic notwithstanding that Jinnah was at the helm of affairs in Pakistan for a significant part of the first Kashmir War

Dealing with the Trilemma

The basic argument that Mr Patel has been making has its roots in the discourse on banking reform and reducing dominant state ownership and control over the banks

Why Donald Trump won

Two new books, The System and Break 'Em Up are among the latest examples of an evolving set of explanations that try to make sense of the 2016 results

Booker Prize: Refreshingly diverse longlist with plenty of new writers

Like all other creative industries, publishing has been hit hard by the worldwide pandemic

Too much misinformation

Bad News is a meticulously-researched discourse on the state of the news, and the psychological impulses that determine how we consume it

Indian-origin author Avni Doshi's Burnt Sugar in 2020 Booker Prize longlist

Avni Doshi's "Burnt Sugar" and two titles from Bloomsbury - "Apeirogon" by Colum McCann and "Such a Fun Age" - by Kiley Reid are among the 13 books in the 50,000 pounds Booker Prize 2020 longlist

Nikah Halala: A proxy scandal

The book is an attempt 'to take the lid off this legalized form of prostitution, encouraged under the garb of faith by men of religion'

Persuading without coercion

Instead of pressing harder on the accelerator, Mr Berger advises removing the parking brake and wheel chocks

Enablers of authoritarianism

A recurring problem in this book is that most of the clercs refuse to talk to Ms Applebaum, leaving her dependent on the public record and the wisdom of mutual acquaintances

Mahabharata deconstructed

Stripping the epic of much embellishment through its careful reading, Dr Karve comes to the conclusion that, above all, it is a story of stoic people, not superhuman beings

Driving the private sector

R C Bhargava finds the idea of reforming a public sector undertaking and making it competitive and a wealth-creator almost an impossibility

Climate change & its discontents

Yes, climate change is real. Yes, we should do something about it

Maximum government, minimum governance

Book review of The Gated Republic: India's Public Policy Failures and Private Solutions

Rearranging our thoughts

The authors urge people who think of themselves as change-makers to recognise how they collude with the systems they are trying to fight

All (garbled) sound and (little) fury

In his tenure, Mr Bolton was the president's faithful companion on all the president's sojourns and meetings with world leaders

Goa's Hindutva architect

This is a book written with affection and sadness about a man who had the talent and intellectual bandwidth to do anything