In Spite of Gods

John Gossman told me about this book “In Spite of  The Gods:  The Rise of Modern India“. I got this Wednesday and read through about 80% of it so far. Being sick with Flue kind of helped too :). The author Edward Luce, has lived in India for years and has really good grasp of what is happening. There is a great analysis of politics of religion/caste, influence on modern India of 3 of the big leaders, of masses namely Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar on various aspects of India (Economy, politics, foreign policy etc).

In one of the chapters he mentions that as the war for independency was taking more and more hold, British had choice of quashing it using military or leave and they chose to leave. Maybe that is the simplification he was looking for in the chapter but certainly there are other reasons why British left India. E.g. Post WWII Britain was in different place than Britain in the era of “Sun never set on British Empire”.

He talks about how books get banned if certain things tend to make certain people angry in India. Calling Shivaji  ‘Maratha General’ instead of ‘Maratha King’, certainly has that potential :).

Comparison of Chinese Economic Growth patterns (labor intensive) and Indian Economic Growth pattern (Capital Intensive) is really good. Analysis of Nuclear capabilities  between India and Pakistan and its implication is also great.

Bottom line, But this is one of the best book I have read about India and One of the best books I have read in last few months. Good way to start new year.

River of No Reprieve

I found this book (River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia’s Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny) last week in library about Jeffrey Tayler‘s travel down the Lena river in Siberia. It caught my eyes because I know so little about that part of the world (not that I know so much more about other parts but you know what I mean :)). Everything I had ever read about Siberia was in negative connotations about getting exiled and gulags etc. It is a great book about a very interesting travel in the remote part of the world. I am about half way through this book but what is interesting is it gives glimpses of Russian history through the conversations he had with people. They talk about Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Stalin, Gorbachev and Putin. I think this is one of the most fascinating country of extreme weathers that has seen extreme changes politically, socially and economically. Traveling along Lena, we meet people who have wide variety of views where people think Gorbachev brought drastic changes too fast and people who think that Stalinist era was good in terms of stability and structure it provided. They talk about Putin and Bush, they talk about Cossacks and Czars. It is a great book as it shows unseen Russia through eyes of common people.

The World Is Flat

Just started reading The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman. After long time got a time to pick up a new book. I have read about 50 pages so far. I had to leave for work today but I hated keeping it down till tonight. Loved the beginning of the book on golf course in Bangalore, and the guy says “hit towards Microsoft” 🙂

I read “From Beirut to Jerusalem” about 2.5 years ago on a flight to India. This is still one of the best books I have ever read on Middle East. When I picked up this book in library,  I missed the fact that it was written by Mr. Friedman. I need to read rest of the two books written by him too.