India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, Edition 3
Feb 2011 · Pan Macmillan
4.1star
496 reviews
Ebook
300
Pages
About this ebook
Born against a background of privation and civil war, divided along lines of caste, class, language and religion, independent India emerged, somehow, as a united and democratic country. Ramachandra Guha’s hugely acclaimed book tells the full story – the pain and the struggle, the humiliations and the glories – of the world’s largest and least likely democracy.
While India is sometimes the most exasperating country in the world, it is also the most interesting. Ramachandra Guha writes compellingly of the myriad protests and conflicts that have peppered the history of free India. Moving between history and biography, the story of modern India is peopled with extraordinary characters. Guha gives fresh insights into the lives and public careers of those long-serving Prime Ministers, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. But the book also writes with feeling and sensitivity about lesser-known (though not necessarily less important) Indians – peasants, tribals, women, workers and musicians.
Massively researched and elegantly written, India After Gandhi is a remarkable account of India’s rebirth, and a work already hailed as a masterpiece of single volume history. This tenth anniversary edition, published to coincide with seventy years of India’s independence, is revised and expanded to bring the narrative up to the present.
While India is sometimes the most exasperating country in the world, it is also the most interesting. Ramachandra Guha writes compellingly of the myriad protests and conflicts that have peppered the history of free India. Moving between history and biography, the story of modern India is peopled with extraordinary characters. Guha gives fresh insights into the lives and public careers of those long-serving Prime Ministers, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. But the book also writes with feeling and sensitivity about lesser-known (though not necessarily less important) Indians – peasants, tribals, women, workers and musicians.
Massively researched and elegantly written, India After Gandhi is a remarkable account of India’s rebirth, and a work already hailed as a masterpiece of single volume history. This tenth anniversary edition, published to coincide with seventy years of India’s independence, is revised and expanded to bring the narrative up to the present.
Ratings and reviews
4.1
496 reviews
Subhash Jangala
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April 23, 2013
I never knew so much inside information about the making of this country. I'm also sure not many of my generation also know. Considering a not so illustrious academic record in history classes at school and a sudden, uncanny revival of interest in historic events, this book was a blessing. The author has brought together Dan Brown style fast paced narrative with Malcolm Gladwell style novel perspective and Abdul Kalam style searing patriotism. All tempered by the neutral, rational temper of a seasoned..
4 people found this review helpful
Sunil Shahu
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February 28, 2013
I have read around 100 pages and history of independence is quit nicely described.But the words used r so HARD CORE, i feel like i am reading a book from some poet trying to show his word power. Referring to dictionary every time is so boring. It could could have been written in simplified way..
1 person found this review helpful
Rohan Nikam
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May 1, 2015
To me n to many more Indians who haven't studied history as an academic, history of India ends after independence in 1947.we scarcely know what it took into building the world's largest democracy.As per Nehru, India's first PM, the most difficult task after independence was to integrate the highly scattered princely states of India into a nation.Moreover it was supremely challenging to create a secular India out of religious India..This book covers all the decades after independence till the recent times
1 person found this review helpful
About the author
Ramachandra Guha has taught at Yale, Stanford, Oslo, and the Indian Institute of Science. His other books include A Corner of a Foreign Field and Environmentalism: A Global History. His awards include the UK Cricket Society’s Literary Award and the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History. In May 2008, Prospect and Foreign Policy magazines nominated Guha as one of the world’s one hundred most influential intellectuals. In 2009, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan for services to literature and education.
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