Stanley A. Wolpert

An overview of India emphasizing its cultural aspects.

Now in its eighth edition, this text features updated scholarship and bibliographic material throughout and integrates new research on such incisive topics as the Indian Diaspora, the economy, and the nuclear issue. The author condenses more than 4,000 years of India's history into one narrative. He discusses modern India's rapidly growing population, industry, and economy, and also considers the prospects for India's future. From a carefully balanced perspective, he presents a fair and truthful record of India's history; he offers both a triumphant portrayal of the brightest achievements of Indian civilization as well as a sobering examination of its persistent social inequities and economic and political corruption. This 8th edition is enhanced with new images and a full-color map of India and the surrounding area.

Provides an authoritative, accessible primer on what is potentially the world's most dangerous crisis, concisely distilling sixty-three years of complex history, tracing the roots of the relationship between India and Pakistan, explaining the many attempts to resolve their disputes, and assessing the dominant political leaders -- from cover.

"No individual in the history of Pakistan - indeed, few people in modern history - have achieved greater popular power or suffered so ignominious a death as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto's political rise and fall were so meteoric that his name became a legend in the land he once ruled. Indeed, a full decade after his execution his continuing popularity ensured the election of his daughter, Benazir, to the premier position he once held. As she campaigned in Sind and Punjab, the crowds cried "Jiye Bhutto!" - "Bhutto Lives!" - and the Bhutto they meant was Zulfi." "Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistani tells the story of this remarkable life in a vivid, insightful narrative. Written by Stanley Wolpert, a leading authority on South Asia and the author of the acclaimed biography Jinnah of Pakistani, the volume traces the life of this remarkable figure front the colorful days of his feudal ancestors to his imprisonment and hanging at the hands of a military dictatorship." "Bhutto, Wolpert writes, was a charismatic and contradictory man, a microcosmic reflection of Pakistan itself - a nation bond out of division with India which later fell victim to its own internal split with the creation of Bangladesh. Wolpert follows him from his privileged youth in British-ruled India, to his years as a student at the University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley (where he sported a thin moustache, shiny two-tone shoes, and proved a keen, if rakish, fraternity brother), to Oxford and back to Pakistan. Bhutto climbed to the heights of power with amazing swiftness, winning a seat in the central Cabinet of Pakistan at the unprecedented age of thirty. Wolpert weaves Pakistan's turbulent politics and repeated wars with India together with Bhutto's ambitious maneuvering, tracing his rise to Foreign Minister, the founding of his own political movement, and finally leadership of the nation. The story of Bhutto's sometimes inspiring, sometimes quixotic career is a fascinating one, and Wolpert tells it brilliantly, through Bhutto's triumphant years in the mid-1970s, the military coup in 1977, and his treacherous imprisonment and execution in 1979." "Like the nation he embodied, Bhutto led a sprawling, ambitious, and tragic existence. Wolpert's intensively researched, engagingly written account captures the scheming, the grandeur, and the contradictions of one of modern history's most fascinating figures."--BOOK JACKET.

Contains 580 alphabetized articles on topics and people related to India's history, culture, religion, and politics, and features maps, charts, sidebars, and more than four hundred black-and-white illustrations.

Story in the form of a novel of the assassination of India's saintly leader, Mahatma Gandhi, in January, 1948.

"The first prime minister of India after independence from British rule, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) was a major architect of India as a nation state. His dedication to politics led to imprisonment under British rule, a deeply disturbed family life, and eventually to nearly two decades in power during which he ceaselessly pursued his vision of a transformed and democratic India." "This compelling biography depicts the phases of Nehru's life and shows how each phase reflected new developments in Indian politics. Drawing on new sources including Nehru's post-1947 papers which have not been accessible before, Judith M. Brown offers the most complete and penetrating account of Nehru yet written. Casting new light on both the public and private Nehru, the book also provides an array of insights into the history of India's nationalist movement and international standing, and into the complexities of constructing a new nation state in the aftermath of imperial rule."--Jacket.