India in 50 Lives

Incarnations

One of the world's most ancient cultures, India can be understood and explained in as many ways as humans can possibly devise.  To make sense of this astonishing turmoil of ideas, Sunil Khilnani has created a remarkably simple and attractive solution.  In this book (which accompanies a major Radio 4 series which he is narrating) he takes the lives of 50 Indians, starting with the Buddha, some very famous, some more obscure, from the earliest records to the present day, and in a series of short chapters describes what makes them so surprising, curious or important.  These are not simply history lessons, but stories rooted in today's India, as Khilnani goes on a quest across contemporary India to find the living traces of these extraordinary individuals.

Sunil Khilnani is the author of the acclaimed and influential The Idea of India (Penguin). He is currently Avantha Professor and Director of the India Institute at King's College London.

For all of India's myths, its sea of stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. Sunil Khilnani's Incarnations fills that space: recapturing the human dimension of how the world's largest democracy came to be. In this stunning and deeply researched book, accompanying his major BBC Radio 4 series, Khilnani explores the lives of 50 Indians, from the spiritualist Buddha to the capitalist Dhirubhai Ambani --lives that light up India's rich, varied past and its continuous ferment of ideas. Khilnani's trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors, philosophers, poets, stars, and corporate titans--some famous, some unjustly forgotten-bring feeling, wry humour, and uncommon insight to social dilemmas that extend from ancient times to our own. 
 
As he journeys across the country, and through its past, Khilnani uncovers more than just history. In rocket launches and ayurvedic call centres, in slum temples and Bollywood studios, in California communes and grimy ports, he examines the continued, and often surprising, relevance of the men and women who have made India - and the world - what it is. Their stories will inform, move and entertain this book's many readers.

The Idea of India

Republished with a new introduction - one of the key books on modern India

This is one of the key books on modern India, acclaimed as the definitive account, and now republished with a new introduction. 
 
The Idea of India was originally published to mark the 50th anniversary of India's independence and has since established itself as a uniquely valuable and authoritative book on a key subject. At the heart of India's self-image since independence has been 'the idea of India' - modern, technocratic, egalitarian, secular - but the tensions between the idea and the reality have become almost intolerable. This book shows how. 
 
Reviews: 
 
'A splendid - and timely - book ... Spirited, combative and insight-filled ... Khilnani has woven a rich analysis of contemporary India and its evolution since indepence. I am inclined to agree with [him] on the robustness and staying power of the secular idea of India' Amartya Sen, Times Literary Supplement 
 
'A masterful rebuttal to all cultural romantics and religious chauvinists ... [A] splendid book about definitions of the Indian nation' Ian Buruma, New York Review of Books 
 
'Especially brilliant is Khilnani's attempt to understand the changing nature of India by studying its urban constructs' Chitra Divakaruni, Los Angeles Times

A splendid - and timely - book ... Spirited, combative and insight-filled ... Khilnani has woven a rich analysis of contemporary India and its evolution since indepence. I am inclined to agree with [him] on the robustness and staying power of the secular idea of India

A masterful rebuttal to all cultural romantics and religious chauvinists ... [A] splendid book about definitions of the Indian nation

Especially brilliant is Khilnani's attempt to understand the changing nature of India by studying its urban constructs

Sunil Khilnani is Avantha Professor and Director of the King's India Institute, King's College London.

Biography of Nehru

Sunil Khilnani

Defies historical conventions...scholarly and accessible, lively and deeply serious. I confess I recognised only about 20 of the names and what I thought I knew was wrong or incomplete... revelatory, bold and contemplative.

A majestic sweep of 2,500 years of Indian history...Khilnani is a rare blend of scholar and cracking travel writer, and his book is replete with distinguished characters little known in the West.

A tour de force of intellectual history, engagingly written and peppered with wry personal anecdotes.

Khilnani is a warm, personable voice on the radio and in this beautifully illustrated book his personal touch has been preserved. It is hard to think of this mammoth task being executed any better.... Superb, *****

Beautifully written with both scholarship and an enviably light touch, thoughtfully constructed and enviably erudite in its wide-ranging references, and as much at ease discussing higher mathematics and philosophy as politics and art, Incarnations is a major work by one of India's most impressive minds, and the best possible introduction to both the complexities and the charms of Indian history.

An exceptionally liberating intellectual journey to take. Mr Khilnani's prose is light and fast-paced... [and his] ability to empathise with people long dead is also astonishing

Sunil Khilnani

Praise for Incarnations

Defies historical conventions...scholarly and accessible, lively and deeply serious. I confess I recognised only about 20 of the names and what I thought I knew was wrong or incomplete... revelatory, bold and contem ...

A majestic sweep of 2,500 years of Indian history...Khilnani is a rare blend of scholar and cracking travel writer, and his book is replete with distinguished characters little known in the West.

A tour de force of intellectual history, engagingly written and peppered with wry personal anecdotes.

Defies historical conventions...scholarly and accessible, lively and deeply serious. I confess I recognised only about 20 of the names and what I thought I knew was wrong or incomplete... revelatory, bold and contem ...

A majestic sweep of 2,500 years of Indian history...Khilnani is a rare blend of scholar and cracking travel writer, and his book is replete with distinguished characters little known in the West.

A tour de force of intellectual history, engagingly written and peppered with wry personal anecdotes.

Defies historical conventions...scholarly and accessible, lively and deeply serious. I confess I recognised only about 20 of the names and what I thought I knew was wrong or incomplete... revelatory, bold and contem ...

A majestic sweep of 2,500 years of Indian history...Khilnani is a rare blend of scholar and cracking travel writer, and his book is replete with distinguished characters little known in the West.

A tour de force of intellectual history, engagingly written and peppered with wry personal anecdotes.

Books by Sunil Khilnani

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