A New History of India | 
 enlarge | Author: Stanley Wolpert
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $47.95
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Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 142359
Media: Paperback
Edition: 8
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0195337565
Dewey Decimal Number: 954
EAN: 9780195337563
ASIN: 0195337565
Publication Date: June 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
After more than twenty-five years in print, A New History of India continues to be the most readable and popular one-volume history of India available. Now in its eighth edition, this acclaimed 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.
In lively, accessible language, Stanley Wolpert condenses more than 4,000 years of India's history into a graceful and engaging 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, Wolpert 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.
Enhanced with striking new images and a full-color map of India and the surrounding area, A New History of India, Eighth Edition, remains the authoritative text on the compelling--and often controversial--history of this fascinating country.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Excellent Work September 29, 2008
This book does a seemingly impossible task of covering four thousand years of Indian history in one not-so-fat volume. Unlike other books of this nature, this book has almost no errors. Yet, I would like to point out one interesting error.
I had read the 3rd edition of this book and had noted one error. When I bought recently the 8th edition, I hoped that the error would have been corrected, but to my disbelief, the error is still there. On page 410, the author writes that General Manekshaw personally accepted General Niazi's surrender. The surrender was shown in a documentary at that time in most cinema halls of India and it was General Aurora who took the surrender, not General Manekshaw.
On the positive note, I can say that I am old enough to know the events since 1965 and that the author has covered all the important events of this period without any important omission or error, which is a great achievement. I think it is simply a great book.
Uday Bajracharya
Great survey book on the history of India August 29, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Stanley Wolpert delivers one of the most concise yet thorough accounts of Indian history to date. He does an excellent job of looking at the development of the subcontinent from the days of BC to the modern Tamil and Pakistani conflicts afflicting the nation today. I read this book to get a background on India as a whole and was not disappointed in its quality. It goes into enough detail to understand the story of how India developed as a country with excellent references on where to get more information. Whether you are looking for a basic textbook of India or an introduction to a study for further use this is a great place to start. From a historical standpoint it is very difficult to write a great survey book but this delivers on every possible expectation for a survey. For those who have knowledge on this subject they may find this book maddeningly frustrating or subject to bias and revisionism however from a novice standpoint I do not see much evidence of that. The citations clearly point to sources where ideas come from and they can be verified through independent reading. Highly recommend for those wanting to learn more about India and how it developed as a nation.
A brisk, passionate history August 9, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Stanley Wolpert manages something remarkable in this brisk history of India: He covers more than 40 centuries in 456 pages but never forgets that he is writing about real human beings. For example, Wolpert compellingly tells the story of the brilliant, ruthless Mughal leader Alamgir, who at the end of his life in 1707 looks back in anguish at the destruction and death he has wrought: "I came alone and I go as a stranger. I do not know who I am, nor what I have been doing ... I have sinned terribly, and I do not know what punishment awaits me.'' And there's the scheming Sir Robert Clive, who achieves wealth and power beyond imagination - and then kills himself. Wolpert obviously loves India, and his book is filled with passion you rarely find in introductory historical surveys. You feel his despair over the natural calamities and failures of leadership that have inflicted so much suffering on the subcontinent's people. (The edition I read was published in 2000, during the early stages of India's economic takeoff; if there's a more recent version, it might be a bit happier.) Despite all the villains and charlatans, there are heroes here too, notably Nehru, who kept the place together in the tumultuous early years of independence, and of course Gandhi. (Wolpert has written biographies of both, and I plan to read them.) My only complaint: The names, dates, events and places fly past so swiftly - Gandhi's assassination gets a couple sentences - that it's sometimes hard to keep track of them. But then, that's probably unavoidable in a text that covers so much ground so quickly. (A bonus for readers who linger over acknowledgements: Wolpert writes a very sweet note to his wife of more than four decades.)
Before You Go... March 27, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a good book to read before you go to India. It's also good to read after you have returned
 an anti-Hindu history that just ignores the facts March 9, 2007
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
A bunch of revisionism. Everytime "the Prophet Mohammed" is mentioned it is mentioned as if he is indeed a prophet, as if the reader should beleive, and yet the Temple of Lord Ram is called the 'supposed' temple and when Hindua perceive something as a miracle it is in quotation marks as "miracle". This is just the beggining of the anti-Hindu nature of this book. When Mohammed of Ghazni destroyed 100 Hindu temples and carted off 500,000 slaves this is told as history but Admiral Albuquerqe of the Portuguese navy is called an "anti-muslim fanatic" because he didnt employ Muslims in his Goa governate. Why is Jinnah or any Muslim leader ever accused of 'fanaticism'?
This is simply a biased sad text. The Europeans are blamed for creating the communalism in India, but perhaps the book could have discussed the very real communal problems where by Muslims colonized India beggining in the 12th century. When one religion colonizes another and suppresses it, that surely is a communal problem and it isnt one the Europeans invented. So this book is manifestly anti-Hindu and anti-Europeans. The author goes so far as to pretend that Jinnah could have been a leader of a 'multi-cultural' India. This while he was ordering his mobs to murder?
It is almost as if this book was written with its conclusions already drawn and half the history of India that doesnt fit the argument is just left out. It would have been nice had this history included some of the Hindu view of their own history, given that they make up the majority and are the indigenous people of the country.
Seth J. Frantzman
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