Tag Archives: Books

In My Hands Today…

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The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers 1804 – 1999 – Misha Glenny

This unique and lively history of Balkan geopolitics since the early nineteenth century gives readers the essential historical background to recent events in this war-torn area.

No other book covers the entire region or offers such profound insights into the roots of Balkan violence, or explains so vividly the origins of modern Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania.

Misha Glenny presents a lucid and fair-minded account of each national group in the Balkans and its struggle for statehood. The narrative is studded with sharply observed portraits of kings, guerrillas, bandits, generals, and politicians. Glenny also explores the often-catastrophic relationship between the Balkans and the Great Powers, raising some disturbing questions about Western intervention.

In My Hands Today…

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Ô Jérusalem – Dominique Lapierre, Larry Collins

This book recounts, moment by moment, the process that gave birth to the state of Israel.

Collins & Lapierre weave a tapestry of shattered hopes, valor & fierce pride as the Arabs, Jews & British collide in their fight for control of Jerusalem.

O Jerusalem! meticulously recreates this historic struggle. It penetrates the battle from the inside, exploring each party’s interests, intentions & concessions as the city of their dreams teeters on the brink of destruction.

From the Jewish fighters & their heroic commanders to the Arab chieftain whose death in battle doomed his cause along with the Mufti of Jerusalem’s support for Hitler and the extermination of the Jews, but inspired a generation of Palestinians, O Jerusalem! tells the 3-dimensional story of this high-stakes, emotional conflict.

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How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History – Josephine Quinn

In How the World Made the West, Josephine Quinn poses perhaps the most significant challenge ever to the “civilizational thinking” regarding the origins of Western culture—that is, the idea that civilizations arose separately and distinctly from one another. Rather, she locates the roots of the modern West in everything from the law codes of Babylon, Assyrian irrigation, and the Phoenician art of sail to Indian literature, Arabic scholarship, and the metalworking riders of the Steppe, to name just a few examples.

According to Quinn, reducing the backstory of the modern West to a narrative that focuses on Greece and Rome impoverishes our view of the past. This understanding of history would have made no sense to the ancient Greeks and Romans themselves, who understood and discussed their own connections to and borrowings from others. They consistently presented their own culture as the result of contact and exchange. Quinn builds on the writings they left behind with rich analyses of other ancient literary sources like the epic of Gilgamesh, holy texts, and newly discovered records revealing details of everyday life. A work of breathtaking scholarship, How the World Made the West also draws on the material culture of the times in art and artifacts as well as findings from the latest scientific advances in carbon dating and human genetics to thoroughly debunk the myth of the modern West as a self-made miracle.

In lively prose and with bracing clarity, as well as through vivid maps and color illustrations, How the World Made the West challenges the stories the West continues to tell about itself. It redefines our understanding of the Western self and civilization in the cosmopolitan world of today.

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The Tatas: How a Family Built a Business and a Nation – Girish Kuber

The Tatas is the story of one of India’s leading business families.

It starts in the nineteenth century with Nusserwanji Tata – a middle-class Parsi priest from the village of Navsari in Gujarat, and widely regarded as the Father of Indian Industry – and ends with Ratan Tata – chairman of the Tata Group until 2012.

But it is more than just a history of the industrial house; it is an inspiring account of India in the making. It chronicles how each generation of the family invested not only in the expansion of its own business interests but also in nation building.

For instance, few know that the first hydel project in the world was conceived and built by the Tatas in India. Nor that some radical labour concepts such as eight-hour work shifts were born in India, at the Tata mill in Nagpur.

The National Centre for the Performing Arts, the Tata Cancer Research Centre, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research – the list about the Tatas’ contribution to India is a long one. A bestseller in Marathi when it was first published in 2015, this is the only book that tells the complete Tata story over two hundred years.

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An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence – Zeinab Badawi

Everyone is originally from Africa, and this book is therefore for everyone.

For too long, Africa’s history has been neglected. Dominated by western narratives of slavery and colonialism, its past has been fragmented, overlooked and denied its rightful place in our global story.

Now, Zeinab Badawi guides us through Africa’s spectacular history, from the origins of humanity, through ancient civilisations and medieval empires with powerful queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence.

Seeking out occluded histories from across the continent, meeting with countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers, and travelling through more than thirty countries, Badawi weaves together a fascinating new account of an epic, sweeping history of the oldest inhabited continent on the planet, told through the voices of Africans themselves.