(Part 2) Best indian & south asian biographies according to redditors
We found 125 Reddit comments discussing the best indian & south asian biographies. We ranked the 40 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
25. Gandhi the Man: The Story of His Transformation, 3rd Edition
1 mention
Used Book in Good Condition
One major point that people should know about Pakistan is that they are culturally, religiously, historically and linguistically tied to India and to an extent, Bangladesh and Afghanistan (the latter tie being stronger than the former).
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh were once a single entity under the British Raj. Most Indian nationalists at that time, and some (though a smaller component) of Greater India nationalists see these three countries as one entity.
There are many reasons as to why India and Pakistan split, some of them are very legitimate concerns, whereas there are some issues that were very clearly motivated by personal interests of several leaders.
There is more to the split between India and Pakistan aside from the Republican split from the British Raj, there are other factors playing into the division of India into India and Pakistan, such as those that pertain to the treatment of the many Princely States.
Here are some solid recommendations as far as reading is concerned on this particular part of the world:
Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah and the Battle for Pakistan by Qutubuddin Aziz & Katherine Wang
Makers of Modern India by Ramachandra Guha
A Concise History of Modern India
by Barbara D. Metcalf & Thomas R. Metcalf
The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan
by Yasmin Khan
Shooting for a Century: The India-Pakistan Conundrum by Stephen Cohen
Read this book The Oxford India Nehru - which is compilations of letters Nehru wrote to different people (heads of state, Congress party officials and state minister). The best way to understand the man and the compelling circumstances he was often subjected to - is only through his own words.
This past weekend I read this book, Three Cups of Tea which really helped me to understand the origins what this article is talking about, and also offers, what I think can be the best way to face the extremely complex yet simple problem we are facing when it comes to these things.
I'll recommend some books that I'm reading right now
Thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman
Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan
Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan
Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman by Richard Feynman
Why Nations Fail by Robinson and Acemoglu
In Afghanistan's Shadow: Baluch Nationalism and Soviet Temptations
The Terrorist Prince: The Life and Death of Murtaza Bhutto
How much do you want to read? Here's the wiki or if you want to go deep his daughter Fatima talks about virtually nothing else (which is understandable). This is her book and here's an article.
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.
Peter Hessler's writings on China are great reads for people who are interested in the region. I particularly enjoyed River Town and country Driving, but Oracle Bones (which I haven't read) is a more historical outlook.
South East Asia is a big and varied region, is there a particular region or specific area in history you're interested in? In 20th century history there are many great biographies on Gandhi and also a lot of informative non-fiction on the Vietnam conflict
It has happened
An Austrian girl falls in love with a Burmese man who is studying engineering in the US.
>Just married and returning to live in her new husband's native land, a young Austrian woman arrived with her Burmese husband by passenger ship in Rangoon in 1953. They were met at dockside by hundreds of well-wishers displaying colorful banners, playing music on homemade instruments, and carrying giant bouquets of flowers. She was puzzled by this unusual welcome until her embarrassed husband explained that he was something more than a recently graduated mining engineer - he was the Prince of Hsipaw, the ruler of an autonomous state in Burma's Shan mountains. And these people were his subjects!
They had a happy marriage until he was arrested by the Burmese regime and then disappeared.
Two books that I ordered arrived:
Heike Monogatari is a big one, as expected. It'll be a long read but I'm looking forward to it. Wellington in India was an impulse purchase because, well, I like the Duke of Wellington and I recently watched the movie Waterloo. This is my first Wellington book. I decided to go with it because the topic interests me - I've read a lot about Waterloo and a bit about the Peninsular War, but never anything about Wellington's campaigns in India. I'm definitely looking forward to it.
Speaking of the Napoleonic age, would anyone happen to know of any good books that cover Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen? I know that he was a really important commander in the Napoleonic Wars, and that's about it. I'd love to read more about him.
The Un-Gandhian Gandhi: The Life and Afterlife of the Mahatma
In case if anyone is interested this is another book on Gandhi, but this focuses on the disjunction between the early and later personality of Gandhi, the paradoxical modernity of Gandhi's anti-modernism. And this also keeps in mind of the criticism of Gandhi by his peers like Tagore and Patel.
Take a look at Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity
Try:
http://www.amazon.com/Taliban-Shuffle-Strange-Afghanistan-Pakistan/dp/0385533314/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318290674&sr=8-1
Not a big fan of Shantaram. My favorite travel book about India (or Delhi specifically) is William Dalrymple's City of Djinns. Also, many folks I know have said good things about Samanth Subramanian's Following Fish though I haven't read it.
Dancing Girls of Lahore- Louise T. Brown
Player Piano- Kurt Vonnegut
I think I have more experience of the culture than you do. Essentially, they speak the same language, roughly, watch the same movies, listen to the same songs and share most of the literature.
"Pakistanis left India to create their own state which involved some war and plenty of hate." - that is just pretty simplistic. Partition had lots more causes than just "hate" , actually the guy who ended up running the country, Jinnah, wanted a federated state as part of an India that was a dominion of the Empire, not full independence. Look up Aisha Jalal's book "The Sole Spokesman..."
http://www.amazon.com/Sole-Spokesman-Pakistan-Cambridge-Studies/dp/0521458501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320137207&sr=8-1
It's not like South Korea/ North Korea. There's a lot of cultural exchange, there are people with families that regularly inter-marry and meet each other.
Is this what I'm looking for from Davis? I haven't read much on Mallory outside of the fiction I mentioned above. That and some stuff revolving around Conrad Anker finding his body.
I'll look for some more stuff from Heffernan and check out some of your recommendations above over the summer. Thanks.
To OP, another excellent source is Pretext for Mass Murder by Roosa. It's quite well researched and gives balance to the claims of different political parties with respect to what happened.
Gandhi wrote a fair amount:
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https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Writings-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/019280720X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536134155&sr=1-1&keywords=gandhi+writings
Hmm....I'm going to interpret that question as '10 Books in No Particular Order that Weren't Massive Bestsellers that I Loved*'
/* Ebooksgirl reserves the right at any time to change, amend, add or delete this list.