For an average western reader feminism and Islam are nearly antagonist concepts. A deeper look into the issue of feminism would reveal that women have been denied of their fundamental rights more often for political and social reasons than religious. In fact, the idea of equality of female sex could only emerge in societies which had reached a certain level of intellectual and social maturity. Perhaps for this very reason the emergence of feminism in Indian Muslims had essentially parallel course with the struggle for political freedom from British rule.

In this book Azra Asghar Ali has very scholarly covered the most eventful part of the history of feminism amongst Muslim women in India. From 1920 to 1947, there was rapidly developing consciousness among enlightened Muslims of India that colonial rule is destined to end and it would lead to a never ending socio-economic dependence of minorities under politically more advanced Hindu community. To save their identity as a nation, the Muslim elite groups waged a so called `holly war' on many fronts. Since this struggle involved active participation of women in political activities, it was considered rather unholy by the more regressive sections of Muslim community. The women thus had to fight on two different fronts simultaneously. Firstly, they had to support their men in struggle for freedom and secondly they had to make sure that their own role in defining the shape of society continues after the political freedom is achieved. As we are told by Dr. Ali, Muslim women safeguarded their position as individuals by identifying `spaces' in public sphere where they can play an effective role. Majority of these pioneering women came from educated elite families and enjoyed the support and encouragement of their male family members in this uphill task. It, therefore transpires very clearly that the emergence of feminism amongst Muslim women was not a struggle between religious and secular groups. It was indeed a struggle between enlightened and the ignorant segments of a predominantly illiterate and misguided society. A society which was prematurely hustled to the cross-roads of western modernism and traditional conservatism.

Although the style of this book is that of a research thesis, it provides very interesting overview for the readers of history in general and as stated by Prof. Francis Robinson, this book is indeed a pioneering work on this subject. It is most comprehensive, unbiased and highly scruplous peace of reaseach work. No one can develope a proper insight in the development of modern muslim woman of subcontinent without reading this book.

This book does not cover the period after 1947 when Pakistan was created as a separate Muslim country, which had a chequered recored of week democracy as well as poor human rights. However, one can imagine the impact of silent as well as overt feminist movements in this society by recognising just one paradoxical political fact that this country enjoys the honour of electing a female Prime Minister first time ever in the entire Muslim world. The post independece history of feminism in this country is therefore, equally interesting and eventful and we can duly request Dr. Azra Ali to obligue us with another scholarly and comprehensive discourse on this period as well as.

This is an up-to-date and concise account of the commercial activities of European traders in Asia between 1500 and 1800. While the pages of tables, graphs and pie charts may make all but the real enthusiast's eyes glaze over, the figures tend to illustrate rather than dominate - unlike in some of the denser tomes in the subject area.

The approach is largely comparative, and covers both private and chartered trading by all major European players in East Asia (including the Danish and Ostend Companies). There is an emphasis upon material relating to the Dutch East India Company, presumably deriving from the author's own expertise in this area; while this is undoubtedly useful and even a refreshing change from the usual weighting towards the English/British EIC, it can at times unbalance the argument and betray hints of bias. Furthermore, Prakash is given to some repetition of phrasing, which makes reading it that little bit more difficult.

In all, extremely useful - but not for the casual reader of Indian history, who would be advised to start with more general histories of the period first.

Richard Burton describes his experiences living in the Sindh province (modern day Pakistan). He details the various birds of prey used by the falconers, and relates the tales of his hunting expeditions.

This is definately not a how-to book, rather it is a glimpse at the history of falconry as it was practiced in the Indus valley.

The account starts in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) in 1943 soon after graduating as a Veterinary Surgeon from Edinburgh. His work then takes him to: Jamaica (1946-1957) Uganda (1957-1963) Peru (1963-1973) Brazil (1973-1975) Mozambique (1975-1982). I had bought the book primarily because of the section on Uganda, and yet I found that part least satisfactory, with some exceptions - for example his colourful descriptions of Karamoja. This is a big book, a hefty 655 pages (good value!). It is also a big book in many other ways: an epic story covering almost 40 years of veterinary service in 6 countries. It recounts Patrick Guilbride's professional and personal life, always full of incident and drama - sometimes hilarious, occasionally sad, and often risky (I lost count of the number of times he escaped death by a whisker). His frightening brushes with rabies, his clever scientific approach to a host of other diseases, make fascinating reading. The subtitle of "Veterinary Vignettes from the Third World" is apt since, within the larger chronology, one is presented with a series of incidents - each engagingly described in graphic detail.

This book is an indispensible tool for the birder in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, or Myanmar (Burma). Compact, complete, and accurate, King and Woodcock have done a fine job of presenting over a thousand species in a manageable size.

Dickinson's illustrations are good paintings, with the field marks clearly visible, and similar birds grouped for easy comparisons. It seems to me, though, that the heads are too big, especially on the smaller birds. Once the viewer gets used to this, however, the illustrations are very usable.

Unlike the latest American guides, the pictures do not appear opposite the text, but instead are on plates distributed through the book. Unfortunately, the text description for each bird lists only the plate number, not the page; I went through the book and added the facing page number of each plate to the text, a job which should have been done before the book hit the shelves.

The book does not use range maps, but rather breaks the Southeast Asia area into regions: 3 for Vietnam, 3 for Laos, 6 and a subregion for Thailand, and 6 plus several subregions for Myanmar. (Cambodia is a unit.) Since the areas follow natural boundaries more than political ones, the range descriptions are quite accurate as far as I can tell. (I have birded fairly extensively in Thailand.)

The book is not perfect by any means, as is to be expected in an area with as little professional naturalist exploration as Southeast Asia. In addition, sacrifices must be made to get all the birds of the area into a book which can be carried in the field. Any competent birder will discover facts not mentioned by King and Woodcock, and possibly see things that aren't supposed to be where they are. I saw birds which were clearly a given species, but lacked a field mark mentioned in the book; these may have been regional variations which space prevented the authors from discussing. But the authors have accomplished a Herculean task: to present a dizzying array of birds in a clear concise format which allows a stranger to the area to identify most of what he or she sees.

As a novice Westerner seeking an introduction to Indian culture I stumbled upon this book. The positive aspects of the book were the clarity with which it defined and discussed so many Hindu concepts and the basis for their beliefs. Much of the terminology I had read in other books on India became suddenly more clear, including the spriritual ones. This made my reading experience valuable. However, it was clear that the book was written in response to another book (written by a Westerner) which critiqued Indian culture in a less than positive way. Arobindo spent so much time dwelling on (over and over) the reasons that the Western author was mistaken, that it lost its impact. Maybe this was due to the time period of the book and the lack of cohesive identity the Indian nation had at that time. If I could have skipped this redundancy I would have boosted my review up another star. Bottom line: after borrowing this from the library, I will buy it (from Amazon, of course).

This is likely to be the most definitive and detailed account of Indian intelligence performance in the Kargil War we shall see for some years to come. From Surprise to Reckoning is the published unclassified version of the Kargil Review Committee chaired by noted Indian defense analyst K. Subrahmanyam who was chartered by the Indian government in July 1999 to "review the events leading up to the Pakistani aggression in the Kargl District of Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir and to recommend such measures as are considered necessary to safeguard national security against armed intrusions".

Amazingly enough, the Kargil Commission actually got a fair level of cooperation from the various agencies within the Indian government and produced a scathing account of Indian intelligence omissions and failures in the months leading up to the war in the summer of 1999. Although the book has numerous deletions due to classification and generally reflects the long-held biases of its chairman K. Subrahmanyan (who has a long history of championing certain Indian defense issues), the book is the starting point for any scholarly or academic research on the Kargil War.

It should be noted that From Suprise to Reckoning focuses mainly on intelligence issues and some of the surrounding defense subjects such as the 'nuclear backdrop; and the 'defense budget' - it is not an operational military history per se. This will take a lot more time to produce and in fact it is unlikely that the Indian Army will ever publish an official military account of the war which will transcends the usual regimental histories commemorating the brave sacrifices of the jawans who died there.

Scholars will of course have to wait even longer for any official Pakistani version of the war. The Pakistani government still insists that somehow brave groups of Kashmiri mujahideen took it upon themselves to seize Indian fighting positions at elevations in excess of 16,000 feet where nobody lives to achieve some mysterious purpose -- obviously these guerrillas have not read their Mao Zedong in which "guerrillas live among the people as the fish swims in the water".

CF ("Charlie") Andrews was given the short shrift in the movie based on Gandhi's life. He was the only one to call Gandhi by the nickname, "Mohan," and was considered by Gandhi himself to be the highest representative of Christianity. Andrews himself had already moved from a high Christology to a Christianity based on such things as the Epistle of James and many of the Kingdom of God statements before meeting Gandhi. In this wonderfully short but insightful book, one is taken from their earliest correspondence up to the death of Andrews. A very powerful image that remains in my mind is the picture of Andrews in the hospital with Gandhi standing next to him holding Andrew's hand in both of his. For anyone interested in history, there's much inside information from the two men but of primary importance is the value they expressed in religion and how it shaped their lives. In a day when we take multiple religious crossings for granted, Gandhi and Charlie were forerunners, pioneers in a day of strife and conflict.

This abridged narration of M.K. Gandhi's book is read by an englishman who tries very hard to put on an Indian Accent. Why this effort was taken for a non-fictional work is unclear.

Many of the Indian words and phrases are clearly mispronounced. This work should have been read by someone with some understanding of India and indian terms.

The fake indian accent is rather obvious through-out the production. At times one might even be ammused by this englishmans antics with accents. Gandhi woud not have appreciated this work.

Several events in the book which is considered as required reading in Indian Schools have been dropped. While other less significant events have been included.

What could be better than Victorian travel literature by Richard F. Burton. Not much. Burton is no slouch when it comes to travel, he takes the hard routes across his continents not the comfy ones that his fellows take and so he sees more and is better able to put the "normal" English experience of India into a wider context. Burton is never given the tasks or assignments he had hoped to get so he sets himself the task, out of mere boredom perhaps, of categorically describing India, its geography, ethnography, religions. He describes India in all manner of ways of describing a place including history of its cities and Goa's history is quite ripe with meaning for Burton as it tells the story of why the Portugese empire fell..., a tale which Burton feels has a lesson for the English. That he was an expert linguist helps and that he had an appetite, insatiable apparently, for all kinds of experience makes his book a kind of interdisciplinary collection of datas, some more significant than others but the effect is that he experienced a place in every way imaginable. He was romantic in that he was not suited to live within anyones boundaries but his own(he was expelled from Oxford), and scholarly, but his was a kind of scholarship that tested existing knowledge of India in the field. Perhaps a growing disillusion with England & what it really was to be English made him particularly susceptible to other knowledges and ways of being. He learned an immense amount about the lives of various natives by blending in and acting as one of them but he did this much as a spy does this, as a means of gaining information, not as an end in itself. He was perfectly suited to be a spy. Properly used someone like Burton would have been an invaluable source of information as to what actual Indians thought. If there were more like him the empire would have better understood the country it was ruling over and so more effectively ruled it, however, most Englishman felt it best to erect and enforce an invisible boundary between himself and the cultures of India. And Burton, who often dressed according to local custom even in his English quarters, was not popular among his peers nor was his information ever taken very seriously. His commanding officers simply were unable to see the value in his ability to play so many roles and so were unable to give him a role worthy of him to play. Among his narrow minded fellow officers he became his own man, a self-styled cultural anthropologist with a minor disciplinary interest in ethnographic mimicry who filled volumes with his very rare and particular talents for cross-cultural interaction and observation.
Like many travel narratives the highlights are in the little details(uncomfortable transports, unfriendly hosts) and side stories. No detail is ever lost on Burton and in matters of stories what counts most is the personality of their teller. There is none better than Burton.