Five millennia of the sub-continent’s history will be interpreted by one of our finest writers on India and the Far East.

This careful study serves up a banquet for connoisseurs and serious students of India.The first single-volume history of India since the 1950s, combining narrative pace and skill with social, economic and cultural analysis. Keay concludes this illustrated history by astutely surveying India's erratic progress in the half-century since independence, marked by communal violence, resurgence of regional interests and the rise of Hindu nationalism. For instance, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, enthroned in 268 B.C., is revered because he preached tolerance and renounced armed violence, yet Keay notes that, contrary to popular opinion, Ashoka never specifically abjured warfare nor did he disband his army. Keay challenges much conventional scholarship in a dispassionate chronicle based largely on a fresh look at primary sources. Finally, the Raj was 'Axe Britannica,' beginning the extensive deforestation of the subcontinent and the systematic suppression of its rural economy.

Nor was British-ruled India peaceful, he adds, because India became a launch pad for British wars against Indonesia, Nepal and Burma, for the invasion of Afghanistan and the quashing of native revolts-often with the coerced participation of Indian troops. No apologist for Britannia's rule, British historian Keay (Into India, etc.) gives the lie to comforting fantasies of the British Raj as the benevolently run 'Jewel in the Crown.' For most Indians, 'Pax Britannica meant mainly `Tax Britannica,'' he writes. Sweeping from the ancient brick cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, built in the Indus Valley around 2000 B.C., to modern India's urban middle class armed with computers and cell phones, this erudite, panoramic history captures the flow of Indian civilization. It illuminates the present.” -Thrity Umrigar, The Boston Globe “Keay’s panoramic vision and multidisciplinary approach serves the function of all great historical writing. Wide-ranging and authoritative, India: A History is a compelling epic portrait of one of the world’s oldest and most richly diverse civilizations. In charting the evolution of the rich tapestry of cultures, religions, and peoples that comprise the modern nations of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, Keay weaves together insights from a variety of scholarly fields to create a rich historical narrative. The British historian and author of Into India delivers “a history that is intelligent, incisive, and eminently readable” ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review).įully revised with forty thousand new words that take the reader up to present-day India, John Keay’s India: A History spans five millennia in a sweeping narrative that tells the story of the peoples of the subcontinent, from their ancient beginnings in the valley of the Indus to the events in the region today.

History of india john keay