Biography India

Ramachandra Guha takes us from Gandhi's birth in 1869 through his upbringing in Gujarat, his two years as a student in London, and his two decades as a lawyer and community organizer in South Africa. Guha has uncovered myriad previously untapped documents, including private papers of Gandhi's contemporaries. Using this wealth of material in an exuberant, brilliantly nuanced and detailed narrative, Guha describes the social, political, and personal worlds inside of which Gandhi began the journey that would earn him the honorific Mahatma: "Great Soul".

This volume opens with Mohandas Gandhi's arrival in Bombay in January 1915 and takes us through his epic struggles over the next three decades. In reconstructing Gandhi's life and work, author Ramachandra Guha has drawn on 60 different archival collections. Using this wealth of material, Guha creates a portrait of Gandhi and of those closest to him that illuminates the complexity inside his thinking, his motives, his actions, and their outcomes as he engaged with every important aspect of social and public life in the India of his time.

This book talks about the experiences of hunter and conservationist Jim Corbett, during his years in the United Provinces, or what is now known as Uttarakhand. Here we see a different side to Corbett, not as the intrepid hunter of big cats but a man who blends seamlessly with the mountain folk of Northern India. Join him in his adventures and feel the thrills of hunting; follow him into dense forests as he encounters a dreaded dacoit who has a heart of gold; and enjoy the tales of love, loyalty, and resilience of simple villagers.

British maritime history in the age of sail is full of the deeds of officers like Nelson but has given little voice to plain, "illiterate" seamen. Now, Stephen Taylor draws on published and unpublished memoirs, letters, and naval records, including court-martials and petitions, to present these men in their own words. In this exhilarating account, ordinary seamen are far from the hapless sufferers of the press gangs.

Declan Walsh is one of the New York Times's most distinguished international correspondents. His electrifying portrait of Pakistan over a tumultuous decade captures the sweep of this strange, wondrous, and benighted country through the dramatic lives of nine fascinating individuals. On assignment as the country careened between crises, Walsh traveled from the raucous port of Karachi to the salons of Lahore, and from Baluchistan to the mountains of Waziristan. He met a diverse cast of extraordinary Pakistanis....

Before the Soviet invasion of 1980, Enjeela Ahmadi remembers her home - Kabul, Afghanistan - as peaceful, prosperous, and filled with people from all walks of life. But after her mother, unsettled by growing political unrest, leaves for medical treatment in India, the civil war intensifies, changing young Enjeela’s life forever. Amid the rumble of invading Soviet tanks, Enjeela and her family are thrust into chaos and fear when it becomes clear that her mother will not be coming home.

A major new investigation into the Bhutto family, examining their influence in Pakistan from the colonial era to the present day.

The story begins in a public square in New Delhi. On a cold December evening a young European woman of noble descent appears before an Indian street artist known locally as PK and asks him to paint her portrait - it is an encounter that will change their lives irrevocably.

Ambedkar’s India is a collection of three of B.R. Ambedkar’s most prominent speeches on caste and the Indian Constitution.

In 1993 Greg Mortenson was the exhausted survivor of a failed attempt to ascend K2, an American climbing bum wandering emaciated and lost through Pakistan's Karakoram Himalaya. After he was taken in and nursed back to health by the people of an impoverished Pakistani village, Mortenson promised to return one day and build them a school. From that rash, earnest promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time: Greg Mortenson's one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban.

Bhagat Singh is a name that became synonymous with revolution in India’s struggle for Independence. This young boy brought about a change in the way people thought about freedom. He was well read and fought extensively for rights – his own, his comrades’ and his countrymen’s. This book is a collection of 18 of his valued writings from within the walls of prison and outside it, which show us the resolve in his words, and the bravery in his acts subsequently.

Mohandas Gandhi inspired the spiritual and political souls of millions of people. His concept of nonviolent resistance propelled numerous struggles throughout the world, including the civil rights movement in America. Written after his release from prison, first published in English in 1927, My Experiments with Truth is Gandhi's autobiography, documenting his spiritual journey amidst the political strife of his times.

A journey through the life of Swami Vivekananda is a study of the Indian civilization, its ethos and value system. Not only did his message of tolerance, based on knowledge, make him an exemplary spokesperson of the country, but his life's mission of creating an order of monks who dedicated their lives for others made him a prophet and a leader. His teachings continue to be relevant even today, especially in the light of the prevailing intolerance and fanaticism in the nation, and the increasing turmoil in the world.

Whatever we may think of Alexander - whether Great or only lucky, a civilizer or a sociopath - most people do not regard him as a religious leader. And yet religion permeated all aspects of his career. When he used religion astutely, he and his army prospered. In Egypt, he performed the ceremonies needed to be pharaoh, and thus became a god as well as a priest. Babylon surrendered to him partly because he agreed to become a sacred king. When Alexander disregarded religion, he and his army suffered. In Iran, for instance, where he refused to be crowned and even destroyed a shrine, resistance against him mounted.

Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned 30, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be. To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. She got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world, all alone. This is the absorbing chronicle of that year.

Mumbai, 2008. On the night of November 26, Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists attacked targets throughout the city, including the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, one of the world's most exclusive luxury hotels. With a deep understanding of the region and its politics and a narrative flair reminiscent of Midnight in Peking, journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy vividly unfold the tragic events in a real life thriller filled with suspense, tragedy, history, and heroism.

Fully revised with forty thousand new words that take the listener up to present-day India, John Keay’s India: A History spans five millennia in a sweeping narrative that tells the story of the peoples of the subcontinent, from their ancient beginnings in the valley of the Indus to the events in the region today.

Second only to China in the magnitude of its economic miracle and second to none in its potential to shape the new century, India is fast undergoing one of the most momentous transformations the world has ever seen. In this dazzlingly panoramic book, Patrick French chronicles that epic change, telling human stories to explain a larger national narrative. Melding on-the-ground reports with a deep knowledge of history, French exposes the cultural foundations of India’s political, economic and social complexities.

An iconic figure in the world of cricket in the 1970s and 1980s, Mohinder Amarnath started his career as a batsman who was found suspect against short-pitched fast bowling and finished it as one of the finest and bravest players of pace. He is still remembered with awe for hooking fearsome pace attacks on bouncy Caribbean and Australian tracks-without wearing a helmet. Grit, guts and gumption defined Amarnath's rollercoaster career. According to both Sunil Gavaskar and Imran Khan, Amarnath was the best batsman of their era.

In 1876 Sophia Duleep Singh was born into Indian royalty. Her father, Maharajah Duleep Singh, was heir to the Kingdom of the Sikhs, one of the greatest empires of the Indian subcontinent. Sophia transcended her heritage to devote herself to battling injustice and inequality, a far cry from the life to which she was born. Her causes were the struggle for Indian Independence, the fate of the lascars, the welfare of Indian soldiers in the First World War--and, above all, the fight for female suffrage.