The book is very interesting for someone who is fascinated with the history and culture of bhutan but the first few chapters are very complicated to read. The author goes into too much detail and there are many whord written in bhutantese. Nonetheless there are beuatiful pictures of the king and the countryside. The pictures are worth the whole book.

I would like to compliment Ashi Dorji Wangmo on giving insided look into the struggles within the elite of Bhutan. She shows her father and his family going through the ups and downs of Bhutan's political fortunes in all the joy and heartbreak that accompanies life's journey. One realizes that like every country, the "Last Shangrila" has people that are not only honest and hardworking, but also coniving and ambitious. The book was also helpful by giving details concerning many people of importance during the early part of the 20th century. I especially liked the many charming photos of the royal family. For me the book was sort of a mirror, that showed the great similarities shared by all humanity, whether good or bad. It puts a human face on life in Bhutan which is often painted in a idyllic, fantasy-like manner by outsiders.
One drawback that I saw was while much detail into the benifits and problems of the ruling class during the early 20th century was given; the writer was rather silent concerning the present political body.

Thy Hand, Great Anarch! comes to us from the veteran Anglophile and Indophobe Nirad C. Chowdhury, at the heels of his earlier masterpiece The autobiography of an unknown Indian. Unlike the first book, Choudhury is nolonger unknown but his vitriolic pontifications against Indian self-rule continues in this book. After having finished his earlier Indian years with the first book, Choudhury goes on to praise the British rule and continues to lament the demise of the "great British Empite"(sic) in this volume, this time from his dreamland of England. Different name, greater number of pages, same foul stench and the same old ideas. To his credit, Chaudhury proves he is still the masterful craftsman he showed as he was in the autobiography and continue to dazzle us with well written intellegent prose. Perhaps he is the best practitioner of English composition living in England and the best 19th century-style British Gentleman left in the UK.

This sequel to "The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian" clearly shows the author losing his grip on both the English language and his sense of structure. This book is far inferior to its predecessor in quality. Some gems are: the portrait of Sarat Bose, the analysis of the Bengali Revolutionary Movement of the 1930s. The chief value of this book is the deliberate departure from the standard mythology of the Indian Independence Movement, and first hand experience of some of its leading lights.

Given the fascinating topic, I really did want to like this book. Unfortunately, it suffers from several defects. First off, Mr. Allsop's writing is just plain bad: clunky and verbose, full of cliches (and even more full of grammatical errors), and peppered throughout with obscure Sanskrit words that are often not in the (rather brief) glossary at the back of the book. Second, the introductions that precede the interviews themselves are all irritatingly hagiographical. Because of an inability to distance himself from the sadhus and sannyasins he meets (he seems, quite frankly, sadhu-struck), Mr. Allsop is unable to present to the reader a flesh-and-blood person, and he fails to give the reader a tangible sense of how these people live their lives day to day and year to year in their adopted country. Third, the interviews themselves are singularly unilluminating and uninteresting: all twelve had a boilerplate quality to them. To a person, each interviewee (there are exceptions within some interviews here and there of course, but very few) came off as one-dimensional and had very little to say beyond vaporous musings about dharma and sammadhi and such, or a simplistic ragging on the West (a couple interviewees struck me as being mentally disturbed, but who had the good fortune to find a place for themselves in India). I suspect, however, that the interviews read the way they do because of the direction (or lack of it) provided by Mr. Allsop. (I imagine that the interviews would've been infinitely more interesting if, say, V.S. Naipaul were the interviewer.) Finally, the typography of the book is absolutely atrocious (as the previous reviewer also pointed out). The entire book is set in a 13/18 sans serif font. Most books are set in a 10/12 serif font (serifs, for those of you who don't know, are the little lines above and below certain letters). A sans serif font does not have these little lines and thus makes reading difficult; in fact, sans serif is almost exclusively used as a display font (a heading, for example). Furthermore, the tracking of the words (i.e., the spacing between individual letters in a word) is so tight as to make reading physically uncomfortable. As far as I can tell, this hideous font was used simply to bulk up the book (it would've been half the length if printed in a standard font). In conclusion, this book was a vanity project that was rightly turned down by mainstream publishers. Oh, that William Dalrymple could have written this book!

The spiritual seekers of the 60's and 70's by and large travelled to Asia, found gurus, lived in ashrams, and then came home. But Marcus Allsop has tracked down those who decided to renounce their former lives and stay in India. Living as ascetics near ashrams or in the backcountry, these Westerners have been assimilated into Indian culture, yet serve as unique witnesses to the interface between the "spiritual" East and the "material" West. Each individual Marcus meets reveals a depth of character that illuminates the attraction of Indian spiritual practices to the dispossesed and the just plain curious.

The book is an short and an easy read, but with further reflection, the depth of the themes revealed herein can be worthy of a lifetime of study.

This would have been a five-star book if the typeface was more readable. Unfortunately the designer didn't realize that most of us read better with serifs. People with astigmatism: beware.

I think Zia did a lot of research but after reading the book I have to look back and ask "what did I really learn about the Eunuchs" ? The answer to that is unfortunately -- nothing. She missed a HUGE opportunity when visiting with a Doctor to find out a lot about the Eunuchs and failed miserably. Great subject matter and it takes an effort to fail with such a great and interesting subject. Save your money !!!!!!

Who knew eunuchs were alive and well in the world on the cusp of the 21st century? Fascinating subject matter. Too bad the writing and reporting here are slapdash and amateurish. In the hands of more skilled author, this could have been a one-of-a-kind classic. Sadly, this is just another example of the publishing world's shortage of skilled editors.

I was very interested when I heard the subject of this book. The eunuchs of India is a subject that very little has been written about. This book promised to tell about this "invisible" group. Instead I kept reading the author's story of her dificulties in finding any infomation only to find the book end without almost any information being found. This was disapointing especially since the story was hard to follow and I only managed to follow it in hopes of finding an in depth look at this fascinating group. I hope that one day another researcher will write the book that this author promises the reader and then never achieves. In the end this book would be better as an introduction for further studies than a book on its own.

Though the author clearly states that this book is a concise history of India, but readers still expect an impartial view of the history and some justice to the subject matter. This book has an almost clinical feel to it- very cut and dry. Emphasis has been placed on names, places and dates rather than the bigger picture, which might be expected of such a small book attempting to cover more than 5000 years of Indian history. Sometime rambling sometimes lucid text is densely written and drops subtle hints of British superiority.

I started reading the book and had not looked at the biography of the author. Almost 1/3rd of the way through the book, a clear pattern emerged wherein the author tried to project that much of what the world knows of India's glory is a result of British efforts. And how the British brought civility and culture to India. It also seemed that the image that the author projected of India was along the lines of what a British "sahib" may have thought of the locals. It was then that I read the author's biography and saw that he was Director of Counter-Propaganda to the Government of India. From the period when he served the government it is obvious that the author was not employed by Government of Independent India but the British Government ruling India (which technically speaking was also the Government of India).

I really feel that justice was not done to the subject matter. Maybe someone who is both- a patriotic Indian and a history buff- might enjoy some aspects of this book. An average reader would find the treatment of this subject poor (and boring) at worst and mediocre at best. I would not recommend this book.

Although the black and white photographs in the book were excellent, the context was dry and terse. Basically, the book was nothing more but a listing of dates and people. The author showed no creativity in making the history remotely interesting.

Photos were included that had no text related to them. Anyone who does not have previous knowledge of India's history would not comprehend why the photos were included.

Although I am an avid reader, I had to force myself to finish this book.

A scholarly concise history of India would best describe this book. It is well illustrated with numerous black and white photographs. An ideal book if you want a quick read on India and its history right from its origins. Though I have a 1979 edition published in 1991, the history 'ends' in the seventies. Despite this, Mr Watson has captured a fairly lucid panaromic view of Indian history spanning many centuries. He has documented the key events and milestones in Indian history and therefore the book serves the need of most who want key and basic information without detailed narration and evaluation. The writing style is simple and easy to read. Even young teenagers would be able to read and understand the flow of events especially the arrival and development of different cultures. Recommended reading especially for FBIs (foreign born Indians) who want to know more about their origins or be better able to relate to relatives and friends still on the Indian sub-continent!

I found this book to be overall pretty disappointing. First off, the illustrations are horrible. They look like children's cartoon drawings. Why don't the editors of mammal-books hire the same artists who do bird guides? The latter are generally really good.

Secondly, there is a lot of important information lacking. For example the book states that it describes "almost all the species that can be identified in the field easily". I was hoping for a book to 'the mammals of the indian subcontinent' (ALL of them) not a book of 'the mammals of the indian subcontinent that can be easily identified'. The whole section at the end on 'Where to Watch mammals' is pretty useless. I'll get that info from the 'Lonely Planet', thanks. That space should have been spent instead on descriptions (and better illustrations) of more species.

This book covers the land mammals of the Indian Subregion or in other words it cover: India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. However, it also does exclude the smaller and often inconspicious mammals like baths, schrews, and most rodents. A number of small but often conspicious mammals are included. For instance both squirrels and pikas are included. In total it depicts and describes 106 species in deatail. It starts in the typical manner with an introduction to the region, mammals, and mammal observing. This section is highly usefull to the unexperienced reader, but will probably seem quite borring to most, as it is short and only mentiones the most bassal things. The next fourty pages is devoted to the mammal species themselves. This means that there is 2-3 species per page. About each species the book descibes identification, habitat, range (no range maps!), behavior, diet, breeding, status, and similar species. The text is not for pleasure reading, but it is highly usefull in the field. A thing to remember - not mentioned in the book - is that the status refers to subregion only, not the intire world. An example is the Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) which is described as endangered. The next pages are assigned to 12 colour plates with drawings of the mammals. The drawings are not especialy beautiful, but all the important details usefull in identification are remembered. The next 12 plates are devoted to animal tracks. The last third of the book describes 23 national parks/reserves in the region including the famous Chitwan NP and Sunderbars NP. These pages are the highlight of the book. In this part there is a map of each park and a quite thorrow descibtion of acces, accomodation facilities, season to go there, larger mammals of the area etc. Sadly similar chapters in other books have been shown to go quickly out of date. At the end of the book there is a chapter called "futher reading" which obviously seems equal to bibliograpy.

In total the book seems to be good in the field, but there are quite a few large lacks. For instance a number of large species known in the area are not mentioned at all. An example is the Toque Macaque (Macaca sinica). The Slender Lori (Loris tardigrandus) is mentioned only briefly in "similar species" of the Slow Lori ( Nycticebus coucang). This seems strange as the Slende lori occurs in a much larger part of the subregion. Sadley this is also a fact with a number of other species. They also use a number of outdated latin names. An example is the use of the genus Felis for all the smaller cats. In the beginning of the book they mention that the reason for the use of "old names" is because they are more familiar to people! But they are still incorrect in my opinion (I know other people don't find them to be so). It is however still a very good and usefull companion when watching wildlife in the region.

If you were a research student looking to gain some insight into Indian business culture then you would be as disappointed as I was after reading this book. The back cover of the book suggests "Indian Business Culture addresses the cultural issues related to doing business in India" but the reader is left wondering 'where'? From the tilte of the book you would expect discussion about cultural issues in Indian business however this is not the case. The book is obviously wrongly titled. Its deals with socio-political history of India. The author has carelessly title the book. It also contains some errors such as Nehru's death is claimed to have occured in 1962 whereas he actually died in 1964. There are occasional gramamtical and spelling errors too.This book isnt worth £19.00.

I was disappointed by this book -- I was looking for a book describing cultural assumptions of Indian businesses and how these contrast to the cultural assumptions of Western, especially American businesses. That's not what this book is about at all. This book is a very high level discussion of Indian national economic policy. I think a better title would have been "Indian Business Policy" rather than "Indian Business Culture" since the term 'culture' is inappropriately applied here.

I thought that this book would be a scholarly work on the life and times of the Frontier Gandhi. I was disappointed. The author makes numerous judgments (often negative) about the Frontier Gandhi, but does not give the Frontier Gandhi's perspective nor look at the world through the Frontier Gandhi's eyes. Instead, the book is divided into chapters, with each chapter dealing with controversial issues on the Frontier Gandhi's life (e.g. Partition, Pakhtoonistan, Referendum, etc.), and in each case the author castigates the Frontier Gandhi. Thus, I would say that this book is severely biased. Any historical figure can be criticized and castigated through a selective analysis of historical events, and this book does not move beyond that. It fails to analyze the Frontier Gandhi's motivations for his positions and stands, and fails to give a richer perspective on the Frontier Gandhi's life. I am surprised that Oxford University Press would allow such weak scholarship to be published under their label.

The second chapter in this book produces an amazingly deep study of potential theoretical explanations (Marxist, feminist and her own hybrid) for the corporate cultures found in two southern Chinese factories. Lee explains that the factories, while owned by the same company, are microcosms of radically different cultures on and off the Chinese mainland.

While her theory is interesting and well studied, she hangs all of it on two small anecdotes; one story of life in each of the factories. While anecdotes reveal realities, I believe we would be hard pressed to think of a single phenomenon that did not occur somewhere in a nation of 1.3 billion people. It seems quite possible that she came up with her theory and then looked at a few of the thousands of factories in southern China until she found some that displayed what she wanted. She simply does not enough people to make me believe that she it really seeing a difference that generalizable or important. She may understand these two factories well, but to make a book like this worthwhile, I'd like it to offer understanding of a larger subculture than that.

This is an expensive and I found pretentious little book which offers little new. I say pretentious as it says that it will be different and that it will explain why so few British soldiers so far from support could defeat the much larger army that they did. Having set himself this task the author then fails to deliver and provides instead simply another potted biography. Not much original here. Four out of ten.