BLOOMSBURY

Empires have collided here, cultures have clashed. Buddhist India claimed it from the south, Islam put down roots in its western approaches, Mongols and Manchus rode in from the north, and, from the east, China continues to absorb what it prefers not to call Tibet. Hunters have decimated its wildlife and mountaineers have bagged its peaks.

Today, machinery gouges minerals out of its rock. Roughly the size of Europe, the region is one of the most seismically active on the planet. Summers bring avalanches, rainfall triggers landslides and winters obliterate trails.

Glaciers retreat, rivers change course and whole lakes quietly evaporate. To some, Himalaya is an otherworldly realm, profoundly life-changing, yet forbidding and forbidden. It has mesmerised scholars and mystics, sportsmen and spies, pilgrims and mapmakers who have mingled with the farmers and traders on the Roof of the World.

Himalaya is the story of one of the last great wildernesses and, in particular, of the bizarre discoveries and improbable achievements of its pioneers. Ranging from botany to trade, from the Great Game to todays geopolitics, John Keay draws on a lifetime of exploration and study to enlighten and delight with this lively biography of a region in crisis.

• Forfatter: John Keay
• Publisert: Okt. 2023
• Antall sider: 432
• ISBN: 9781408891162

1989 marks the unraveling of India's 'Nehruvian Consensus' around the idea of a modern, secular nation with a self-reliant economy. Caste and religion have come to play major roles in national politics. Global economic integration has led to conflict between the state and dispossessed people, but processes of globalization have also enabled new spaces for political assertion, such as around sexuality.

Older challenges to the idea of India continue from movements in Kashmir and the North-East, while Maoist insurgency has deepened its bases. In a world of American Empire, India as a nuclear power has abandoned non-alignment, a shift that is contested by voices within. Power and Contestation shows that the turbulence and turmoil of this period are signs of India's continued vibrancy and democracy.

The book is an ideal introduction to the complex internal histories and external power relations of a major global player for the new century.

• Forfattere: Nivedita Menon og Aditya Nigam
• Publisert: 2007
  
• Språk: Engelsk
• ISBN: 9781842778159