(Part 3) Best india history books according to redditors

You say that like the defense industry isn't worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually, or that Arundhati Roy isn't an award-winning author who's book has sold millions of copies and has been translated into 40 languages.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/sofex-the-business-of-war-full-length

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundhati_Roy#Advocacy

By all means, please link to your published works so we can know that you're in a position to judge Ms. Roy. I'm sure you're busy winning literary prizes and not wanking and playing video games. Certainly you're not a nameless, faceless internet nobody who's highlight every day is the small dopamine rush you get from upvoted comments on Reddit?

Could you post your collection of published essays or articles so we can know you're older than 14 yourself, Spencer? Or is it Chad?


https://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Infinite-Justice-Arundhati-Roy/dp/014302907X

You spelt it right!

Your question is rather broad: any fruitful discussion about Gandhi and his life, and contributions or so forth will be incredibly long and detailed.

I will assume that you are familiar with the conventional wisdom, and/or that others will talk about it. I'll try to highlight differing opinions.The conventional wisdom sees him as a political and moral leader of great stature, and this is broadly accepted by most people. However, in today's India, and undoubtedly in the India of his time, loads of people disagreed with his ideas and policies.

1. Tactical disagreements: This is the easiest one to tackle. This basically consists of people who disagreed with his methods of carrying out the struggle for independence. His suspension of the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1921, his inability to prevent the execution of Bhagat Singh and revolutionaries while negotiating with the Viceory Irwin, his active suppression of the activities of Subhas Chandra Bose, and his broad support to Nehru and the basic ideas of socialism all meet with passionate criticism, even eighty years after they occurred.
   
   
2. Strategic disagreements: Several people question the strategy of a non-violent mass struggle in order to expel the British, and the overall strategy of agitation-truce-agitation which he followed. They believe that elements of an armed struggle, or even a continous campaign of civil disobedience, with no negotiations with the British, would have resulted in independence far sooner. The various negotiations he had with the British, as well as the broad support given during WW2, are also criticised.
   
   
3. Social disagreements within Hinduism: Gandhi's position on caste in society was complicated. While he was a fierce critic of untouchability and caste oppression, he believed that the caste system as a whole was not inherently evil, and wanted to reform Hinduism from within. His attitude towards the untouchables, by naming them Harijans, and working for their uplift, was criticised both by conservatives who opposed any sort of uplift, and by activists of the lower caste, who found his attitude to be patronising and patriarchal. In fact, the word "Harijan" itself has fallen out of favour, and has been replaced by "Dalit". The Poona Pact between Gandhi and Ambedkar, where he went on a hunger fast till death in opposition to separate electorates for Dalits, still rankles in the minds of Dalits today.
   
   
4. Religious disagreements: Gandhi saw himself as a devout Hindu, but also believed that all religions were essentially founded on similar moral values. His attempts to reform Hinduism, promote unity and discourage religious extremism were criticised both by Hindu and Muslim right-wingers, who saw concessions and compromises in the political sphere as hindering the interests of their religions. His support of the Khilafat movement was seen to be pandering to Muslim communalism, and overall he was accused on one hand of damaging the interests of the nation in general and Hindus in particular by agreeing to several communal demands, culminating of course in Partition.
   
   
5. Partition: His role in Partition was seen as one where he meekly accepted the blackmail of Jinnah and the Muslim League, as well as the stubborn interests of several Congress leaders like Nehru who insisted on a centralised state, with the unspoken assumption that he would head it. Several people, especially on the Hindu rightwing, assigned a large share of the responsibility for Partition to Gandhi. In addition, his campaign to pay a sum of money of 50 odd crores which India owed Pakistan, coming in the communally charged atmosphere after Partition and the Kashmir conflict, was the trigger which prompted his assassination.
   
   
6. Political/Economic disagreements: His idea of a decentralised system of self-sufficient, self-governing villages to form India was seen as naive and impractical. Wikipedia calls him a philosophical anarchist, and I feel this is an apt description of his ideas. Of all Gandhi's ideas, this died the quickest death: He saw his attempts at religious harmony fail utterly in his lifetime, with Partition and communal polarisation, but the idea survives and is strong till today. His ideas of a republic of self-sufficient villages also failed in his lifetime: and even today finds very few supporters in India.
   
   
7. Moral disagreements: Gandhi's conception of non-violence and Satyagraha was the usage of non-violent but active resistance and agitation as the only morally correct and most effective method of resisting an aggressor. He believed that this required immense reserves of personal courage, and emphasised that this was superior to the usage of armed force. He went so far as to exhort the Jews of Germany to passively turn themselves in in large numbers, saying
   
   > "Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs... It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions."
   
   He has been criticised for his inconsistent application of this principle, for implanting the spirit of passive resistance, cowardice and meekness in Indians. In addition he failed to recognise the particular nature of Indian situation of that time which made passive resistance succesful. Critics believe that his emphasis on non-violence as a universally applicable moral principle is ill-founded.
   
   
   Disclaimer: This is a loooong post, and is by no means comprehensive. I myself admire Gandhi overall, and disagree with several of the criticisms, so some bias in my descriptions is inevitable. I guess others in r/india will have different viewpoints. I believe that an understanding of Gandhi is incomplete without an understanding of the broader Indian national movements. I would recommend "India's struggle for independence", a good analysis of the movement from a mildly leftist perspective, as a starting point.
   
   Edit: Aww, thanks for the compliments, youguyz.

He's right in saying that modern science has never existed before, but that does not exclude rational scientific inquiry in the past, which I don't think he's denying. Yes the claims by some people are unfounded, as the possibility of modern scientific inquiry could not arise due to the simple lack of framework that is resolved by modern science. However plastic surgery as a technique was invented by Sushruta, and is historically verifiable.

That's fine, but my problem is with the idea that many scientists believe today, that being Europe was the center of the Modern Scientific revolution. Philosophical modernism, and the pursuit of inquiry with a Modern scientific rigor were not unique to Europe as we can see movements that were initiated by various Indian schools of thought in the 17th century that were undoubtedly similar to the Enlightenment thinkers of Europe, and in many ways more developed, complex, and refined.

I've said this many times before, and I'll say it again read Lost Age of Reason to understand the scientific philosophy of medieval India, doubly so if challenging the idea of the west's claim on the scientific revolution is an interest. As India's scientific revolution was at one point in time alive, but was brutally slaughtered by the idiocy of Imperialism.

However I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the Nobel Prize winner as I'm sure he's very well versed, beyond my capabilities, in understanding the philosophy of science, or the history of science, and has only given an answer that appeases rather than one that is nuanced.

Brits of what I would describe as Officer status tended to stop marrying Indians around the period from 1815-1825, ish. Before then it was very common, including Indian men marrying British women. Indeed, until the mid-Eighteenth century nearly all Brits in India who married would have married an Indian or an Anglo-Indian, or a "Portuguese", by which they meant somebody who was genuinely Portuguese, or who was an Indian Christian, who were mostly descendants of earlier Portuguese. By the 1820s more British women were coming to India, and there was also more chance of Brits being able to seriously consider the chance of coming home to Britain rather than dying in India. Consequently, marrying another Brit became both more possible and, possibly, more desirable. Certainly, by the 1830s Officer Class Brits were most unlikely to marry an Indian. Brits of lower status never stopped marrying Indians, or Anglo-Indians, right up to the end of British India.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Mughals-Betrayal-18th-century-Eighteenth-century/dp/0006550967 is pretty good on this area.

However much disillusioned I have become from AAP, they are the only party which talks about cleaning up poll funding to make it more transparent.

PS: The author of this article has written a fabulous book about the influence of money and muscle in Indian politics - When Crime Pays

Book reco - https://www.amazon.in/Nucleus-Nation-Scientists-International-Networks/dp/0226019756

One thing very important about his story is understanding the value of networks of people. He had feet in political, scientific and business networks of the country. From Tagore to Gandhi to the Tatas to the Gujju business community to the Congress high command to Nobel laureates he was always surrounded by people at the top of the food chain.

This plays a big role in how people think about the world, what they think is possible and how to get things done. All the famous institution builders in India usually have that feature. Some people like Sarabhai, Dhirubhai, Gandhi etc are born into these networks while others work their pants off to get into them like Kalam and Modi.

The Network is super critical in making big things happen. If you are confident in your skills and the ambitious kind, don't waste time and effort working for people who don't understand that.

Here is a list of 5 books specifically in an Indian context

1. "India since Independence" by Bipin Chandra. It is a well researched, thorough, and succint book on India's journey after attaining independence. It chronicles the significant events accurately, and doesn't leave any aspect untouched.
   
   
2. "Every loves a good drought" P Sainath is among those, fast dissappearing breed of journalists who reports on poverty related issues from the hinterland. He single-handedly thrust the issue of farmer suicide in the Vidarbha region onto the mainstream through his dogged journalism. This is one of his earlier books in which he details extreme poverty and the policies that sustain it with his own keen insights.
   
   
3. "The Meadow" . One of the authors is Adrian Levy who is an award winning investigative journalist. He has also written a book on 26/11 attacks; The siege. In 'The Meadow', the authors investigate the kidnapping of ten Western backpackers in Kashmir during the height of freedom movement in 1995. The book explains how their lives became pawn in the geo-politcal struggle, the role of Indian army during the event, while at the same time providing a good understanding of the Kashmir Issue. Highly Recommended.
   
   
4. "The Discovery Of India" It is a scholarly work on India's history.
   
   
5. "Gunahon ka devta" by Dharmveer Bharti. It is the only fiction book in the list, and probably the last hindi novel I finished. I read this when I was still quite young (I think in eight or ninth class). The characters, their complexities, ambitions, are etched very nicely. If you are still not sold, read the first paragraph.
   
   Along with these 5, one of my favourite book is "The banality of Evil". It deals with something which confounds me still, just how the seemingly nice, sane people come to support the purest manifestations of evil. What drives such public sentiment ? The book gives some of the answers.

For modern India, Ramachandra Guha's India After Gandhi. The dude digs up every memo, every administrative note, personal letter available, to narrate the story of India from around independence till current times (still have to get there). Lots of details, but it is sometimes quite gripping. The whole correspondence between Chou En Lai and Nehru, culminating in the War of '62, is particularly worth reading. Highlights the different governance of the two countries, and causes for India's defeat. There's a lot more. The story of Partition, and how Vallabhai Patel and his secretary (VP Menon) worked to accomplish the daunting task of integrating the over 500 princely states into one, democratic Indian Union is essential.

For ancient India, I am just starting. I just got into John Keay's India: A History. This is a beautiful book. Starts with India's most ancient known civilisation, the Harappas, and proceeds to chronicle the evolution of the country ever since, from the consequential "invasion" of Arya, to the skirmish with Alexander, the rise of Mauryan empire (and Ashoka the great) and the Indian "Dark Age" (that's as far as I have gotten!), and beyond (emergence of the Gupta empire is just around the corner). It is pragmatic, unbiased, thorough narrative of this subcontinent. I really enjoyed the chapter on Vedic era; finally got to know what is reliable and what isn't from that era, and a brief glimpse into how historians work to check the veracity of all the bold claims in the two great epics of Indian literature, Mahabharata and Ramayana. There is also frequent mention of the lineage of kings in Puranas (it is mostly unreliable, with little to know details of the time periods).

This is a novice beginning for me, and I will have to re-read these two books alone several times, to cement any idea of the complexity and diversity of Indian history. Maybe someday, I will get to move on to European history and everything in between!

Pakistan: A Hard Country

> Gurbani is available on websites which may be accessed by sikh and non-sikh alike.

Just like it always has been in book form.

> Gurbani is now available on phones, for use in all sorts of situations and scenarios, such as when you are trying to understand some kirtan and are sitting around confused in the congregation hall.

Just like it always has been in book form.

> Gurbani kirtan is found on youtube, itunes, soundcloud, you name it, again for access by sikh and non-sikh alike.

Just like it always has been in video tape, cassette, CD form.

> Gurbani quotes and references are finding themselves into unlikely sources, such as video games (Civilization 5 and Europa Universalis), which are read by sikh, but mostly non-sikhs.

Just like they always have been e.g. here, here.

What's your point about free speech? You don't own the copyright over the book or impose control over its use. At best you're confused but I'm not 100% sure you're not a troll (I'll give you benefit of doubt). Who is trying to impose taking off shoes or covering of heads when referencing a quote from the Gurbani? Evidence please.

Technology has not fundamentally changed anything, it's just made it easier for people to reference and access the Gurbani, just like the billion other things on this planet it's helped in the same way. Digital, physical -- same thing. It's the bits that are being communicated that are important, not the medium of communication.

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Arc-Dramatic-Mapped-Everest/dp/0006531237

This is also the thesis of The White Mughals, by William Dalrymple. It's meticulously-researched history, wrapped around a moving and genuinely romantic love story. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

I'm halfway through the audiobook version of India: A Portrait by Patrick French.

It's pretty interesting, and paints Manmohan Singh in a good light despite all of the problems in the Congress govt. And how a lot of economists didn't consider him a good economist, but how MMS took a simple idea and just ran with it.
I recommend the book so far.

https://www.amazon.com/India-Portrait-Departures-Patrick-French/dp/0307473481

Thanks for the link. God of Small Things ranks in my top 20. Just such a gorgeous and at times heart breaking novel--a must read.

I was visiting family in India in 2010 and found myself in a used bookstore. At some point my eye fell on [The Algebra of Infinite Justice] (http://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Infinite-Justice-Arundhati-Roy/dp/014302907X/ref=la_B000AP7ZT4_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394144576&sr=1-10) which, published in 2001, is a collection of her political non-fiction writing up to that point. Algebra actually included a few of the essays referenced in the NYT piece.

Until I started reading the book I was not aware of how political active Roy was and how much she had written on wide ranging topics. While I did not always agree with every stance she took in the book it was abundantly clear that she was a fierce advocate for the some of the most downtrodden in India. Through a lot of that writing she spoke for those that either didn't have a voice or who's interests were in direct conflict (and hence likely to be drowned out or ignored) with some of the most wealthy and affluent people in India. I grew up in America and while I tried to occasionally keep up with the big picture happenings in India I don't think my knowledge even really scratched the surface of Indian political life or speech. That said, one thing about India that becomes abundantly clear very quickly is that anyone that speaks out either against the wealthy and powerful or against popular opinion can be subject to various forms of push back that can make life very difficult. This push back can be as tame as a stinging rebukes from various media outlets to more insidious and harmful threats against a person's personal or economic interests.

So agree or disagree with her advocacy or agree or disagree with the rather strident tone in which she wrote, I think you have to respect her courage and willingness to go out on a limb to advocate for people that no one with nearly Roy's platform was advocating for. Especially since, as she alludes, it would have been a lot easier her to continue writing fiction and being an award winning author getting accolades and making big money on her books and speaking tours. She likely threw away significant earning potential to stand up for people in need--much respect to her for that.

1. KA Nilkanth Shashtri
   
   
   A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar - Amazon Link
   
   
   The Illustrated History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar - Amazon Link
   
   
   Foreign Notices Of South India - Google Archives
   
   
   
2. A S Altekar
   
   
   Rashtrakutas And Their Times - Google Archives
   
   
   
3. AL Basham
   The Wonder That Was India: 1
   
   
   You can read this book for free on Anybooks app.
   
   
   Edit your post and add all these links.

Have you looked at the wiki page?

Edward Conze has translated a number of these sutras. He's got the PPS in 18,000 lines if you are looking for something massive.

I also recently finished a five volume exegesis of the Prajnaparamita which was encyclopedic in its coverage of Buddhism and the Path; I heartily recommend it.

I think Conze's book might be the closest we have. The 84,000 project will eventually cover the 100,000 line version.

I enjoyed Ganeri's The Lost Age of Reason and some of the papers in The Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy (eds. Nachtomy and Smith). Also, Don Garrett has put out a new intro book on Hume that I want to check out.

Oooooohhh coooooool. I hope you update us on your progress! This sounds super cool.

I only have one particular recommendation, Sarah Lamb; White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: More about gender and aging, but Lamb goes into some interesting nuance regarding subsistence, cooking and gender/age (including gender fluidity and caste navigation). Also, check out Susan Rasmussen's books on the Tuareg. She doesn't focus so much on food, but heavily on gender, religion, ritual and language. I never ran across a whole lot of early anthropology that focused exclusively focus on the constellation of topics you are looking for, but TONS can be extracted from it, especially subsistence-based ritual, such as from Malinowski ("Coral Gardens and their Magic"). Taboo is also (obviously, through Douglas) a subject richly covered all over the place.

Have fun! Sounds like an awesome project.

> were there ever characters or instances in these texts which condemned such discrimination

This seems to be the norm in Vedic society; so I don't think there were explicit condemnations.

But neither was Rama considered great by everyone.

Read on arguments of Jabali, a learned Brahmin priest and an advisor of Dasharatha:

To quote from The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity, Amartya Sen:

> A pandit who gets considerable space in the Ramayana, called Javali, not only does not treat Rama as God, he calls his actions 'foolish'

He further argues:
> The injunctions about the worship of Gods, sacrifice, gifts and penance have been laid down in the Shastras [Hindu scriptures] by clever people, just to rule over [other] people and to make them submissive and disposed to charity

For an overview of India's history, I'd recommend India: A History by John Keay.

Midnight's Descendants also by John Keay. This covers South Asia's history since Independence. I prefer this over Ramachandra Guha's India After Independence (I've read both), as Guha comes across as a Nehru fanboy in his book (IMO).

Blood Telegram about the 1971 war.

Since you mentioned South Indian history, The Illustrated History of South India by Nilakanta Sastri. It's quite old, and you may find the text a bit dull, but this is the best book about South India I could find.

Kaoboys of R&AW by B. Raman. For a behind-the-scenes look at India's intelligence agencies.

Exactly. Garhwal is where it all started! I recently read this epic book on how India was mapped and how Everest was named. Would love to know if you've any recommendations on similar lines.

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Arc-Dramatic-Mapped-Everest/dp/0006531237

I am a Historian I think many of those books highlighted are not really a master list but a good jumping off point to delve into the region. I would suggest for India to read " India after Gandhi" http://www.amazon.com/India-After-Gandhi-History-Democracy/dp/0060958588.

Also a good primer would be: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802145582/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1944579842&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0060958588&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1NYR2DTB6GR13K5JBN1S

Fiction


The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature

Non - Fiction

The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity by Amartya Sen

V. S. Naipaul - India Trilogy.

India In Slow Motion by Mark Tully

The Very Best of the Common Man - R.K. Laxman

When Crime Pays – Money and Muscle in Indian Politics by Milan Vaishnav is in my wishlist from the day it is released. If you read it, do post a review.
http://www.amazon.in/dp/0300216203/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3AVNWFPOLB9DN&coliid=I2QR48K7RLEE0G

warning. this is a long post. please don't read unless you read the entire thing.

in my opinion it was pretty disgusting. Jinnah used religious differences that had not prevented over 900 years of coexistence to fuel the drive to create a country. A great example of this coexistence is described in 'Empires of the Indus' by Alice Albinia (http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Indus-The-Story-River/dp/0393338606) that is instructive:

"Whatever Latif (referring to Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai) was, his Risalo is not the work of a dogmatist. It contains few tenants of any kind, whether Sufi, Shia, or Sunni. It is certainly the work of a Muslim - but no more stridently than Shakespeare's plays are coloured by Christianity. Just as Shakespeare has been called a Protestant, Catholic, atheist, and the inventor of romantic love, so, according to the Sindhi historian Hussamuddin Rashdi, the same fate has befallen Latif.

Shah Abdul Latif has always been as beloved by Sindhi Hindus as Sindhi Muslims, and every year Hindu scholars from India are invited to the government-sponsored literary festival, held during the urs. Latif himself spent some three years in the company of Hindu yogis, and he praises them in his poetry:

I find not today my Yogi friends in their abodes;
I have shed tears all the night, troubled by the pang of their parting;
The Holy Ones for whom my heart yearneth, have all disappeared.

Latif's Risalo, then, exemplifies the easy spiritual interaction that exists between the two faiths, an easiness that has been acquired after centuries of cohabitation. This legacy is an irony in a country based on the separation of Muslim and Hindu (referring to Pakistan), and it is wonderful that this syncretism has survived....

..I arrive at Urderolal at dusk. As I climb down from the bus I can hear that the mela, the fair, has begun: through the loudspeakers mandatory to any subcontinental religious event, bhajans - Hindu devotional songs - are being chanted; and in the background is a steady wall of noise, the coming and going of pilgrims. I turn the corner in the road and see the massive Mughal fort, with its five-foot-thick walls, which enclose a mosque, a temple, and the tomb of a man whom Muslims call Shaikh Tahir and the Hindus call Jhulelal or Urderolal - and whom everybody calls Zindapir. Today it is Zindapir's birthday.

As I am circumambulating Zindapir's tomb with the crowd, a Hindu family arrives, bearing a traditional green Muslim cloth, inscribed with Quranic verses, which they drape over the tomb in thanksgiving. In the adjacent room, devotees are queuing up to pray to a roomful of Hindu images. In the room next to that are the graves of the four Muslim Shaikhs who - according to the Hindu legend - granted Zindapir the land, free of charge, on which to build a temple in the 10th century. Outside in the courtyard, is a tree the branches of which are hung with pieces of coloured cloth, the wishes of supplicants of both faiths.

I have been invited to the Hindu-only festivities by Diwan Lekraj, a member of the Evacuee Trust Property Board set up after Partition to protect the monuments of the absent 'minorities'. Diwan is a Hindu, but he is almost indistinguishable from the Muslims around him. There is nothing in his dress (shalwar kameez) or his language (Urdu) or his car or his house to draw attention to his 'minority' faith. Perhaps the horrors of Partition taught Pakistan's Hindus that it was wiser thus. Or maybe there really is not much to distinguish them after all, as the story of Zindapir's two faiths suggest...

• Empires of the Indus, pp. 94-99.
  
  Can a Hindu really be a Pakistani, if Pakistan was founded on the basis that Hindus and Muslims are different civilizations? Events like the one described in the book run counter to the popular narrative surrounding Pakistan’s creation. Many Pakistanis will claim that they bear ill will against Hindus or any religion, and as a Pakistani I can say that this is true. However, this does not change the fact that our founding narrative treats Hindus and by extension Sikhs as fundamentally different and that had partition not happened we would live in existential fear of imminent extinction at their hands.
  
  
  

You should check out India: A Potrait It covers history from 1947 to present.

Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan is a very good book which chronicles the search for "Muslim space" by the Muslim elites, after the fall of the Mughals on the subcontinent.

This is a must read book on the subject.
This is very good as well.

Pakistan is not a US ally - before armchair experts weight in. They have been taking our money and funneling it to Pakistan Taliban and Lakshar to fight US troops across the border in Afghanistan.

Wow! So many numbers. That was really some mind boggling calculations, though he also doesn't put Rama at 10,000 ago! So the point of idol or temples still seems futile. Though I said 1,296,000 from the following scholars.

https://www.dukeupress.edu/averting-the-apocalypse/?viewby=title

http://www.amazon.com/Ramayana-historical-perspective-Hasmukhlal-Dhirajlal/dp/0333903900

http://www.amazon.com/India-Michael-Wood/dp/0465003591

(You can also get those referels from Wikipedia)

Michael Wood made a documentary on the history of India (6 installments, I believe) for the BBC. He wrote a book called India, which I assume is a companion book to the series (he did a series on the Conquistadors and released a book which was a companion book). I haven't read it, but the documentary was great. It may be worth checking out as a good starting point at least.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465003591/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=2EC2LL3CN96A3&coliid=I1PCX546PYYNS8

This here is good. [Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393338606?ie=UTF8&tag=vlogbrothers-20&linkCode=shr&camp=213733&creative=393185&creativeASIN=0393338606&ref_=sr_1_4&s=books&qid=1328216396&sr=1-4)

This one for freedom struggle


And if you want to go all the way to Ancient times, then this one

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sikhs-History-Religion-Society/dp/0231068158/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1344217958&sr=8-6&keywords=sikhism+mcleod

http://www.amazon.com/History-Sikhs-Volume-1469-1839-Collection/dp/0195673085/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344217976&sr=8-1&keywords=sikhism+khushwant+singh

http://www.amazon.com/History-Sikhs-v2-1839-1988-corrections/dp/0195626443/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1344217976&sr=8-5&keywords=sikhism+khushwant+singh

This is old and will get burried in the replies, but I have to offer a few corrections:

1. The VAST majority of the kids in that school were from civlian NOT military families.
   
   
2. The FATA is the Federally Administred Tribal Areas, while the Northwest Fronier Province is the former name of the current Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. This is not a small correction - the KP Province is a part of Pakistan like New York State is part of the Union or Tasmania is part of Australia. The FATA is more similar to the American Indian land - and the people who live there have mostly just done their tribal thing up until 9/11. The Pakistani Military entered the FATA for the first time in history after 9/11 and some of the tribal folk haven't taken too kindly to that.
   
   
3. Your attribution of this tragedy to "Pashtun Revenge" is akin to the "Black Rage" defense used in America.
   
   The geopolitics of the that TTP and the Afghan Taleban are very complicated and your McSummary does not do it justice. I'm happy for your Reddit gold, and I'm heartened that your post wasn't hateful; it's clear that your heart is in the right place. But your explanation is just deeply flawed and overly simplistic.
   
   For those interested: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pakistan-Hard-Country-Anatol-Lieven/dp/0141038241
   
   

A History of the Sikhs
volume 1
volume 2

These are the most recent "catch all" histories and pretty damn well researched

If you're looking for a historical, text book type source, then you want A History of the Sikhs Volume 1, 1469-1839 and Volume 2, 1839-2004 by Khushwant Singh. Comprehensive and well researched with plenty of footnotes.

The Discovery of India - Jawaharlal Nehru

The Vedas - Jon W Fergus and Ralph T.H Griffith

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Discovery-India-l-Nehru-Jawaharlal/dp/0143031031/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1535964068&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=the+discovery+of+india&dpPl=1&dpID=51XkG9oUMGL&ref=plSrch

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vedas-Samhitas-Atharva-single-unabridged/dp/1541294718/ref=pd_aw_sim_sbs_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=2CB9ZA1P0VWVZVC22GJ9