{"product_id":"9780374537210","title":"Incarnations : A History of India in Fifty Lives","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eIncarnations\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Sunil Khilnani\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn entertaining and provocative account of India’s past, written by one of the country’s leading thinkers\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor all India’s myths, its sea of stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. In \u003ci\u003eIncarnations\u003c\/i\u003e, Sunil Khilnani fills that space, bringing to life fifty extraordinary men and women who changed both India and the world. Journeying across India in pursuit of their stories—visiting slum temples, ayurvedic call centers, Bollywood studios, textile mills, and Mughal fortresses—Khilnani offers trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors, philosophers, artists, iconoclasts, and entrepreneurs. Some of these historical figures are famous. Some are unjustly forgotten. And all, Khilnani convinces us, are deeply relevant today. As their rich and surprising lives take the reader through twenty-five hundred winding years of Indian and world history, Khilnani brings wit, feeling, historical rigor, and uncommon insight to dilemmas that extend from ancient times to our own.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe encounter the Buddha not as the usual beatific icon but as a radical young social critic. We meet the ancient Sanskrit linguist who inspires computer programmers today. We hear the medieval poets, ribald and profound, who mocked rituals and caste and whose voices resonate in contemporary poetry. And we see giants of the twentieth-century Independence movement—among them Mohandas Gandhi; Ambedkar, the Untouchable lawyer turned constitution maker; and the legendary singer M. S. Subbulakshmi—not as cardboard cutouts but as complex and striving human beings. At once a provocative and sophisticated reinterpretation of India’s history and an incisive commentary on its present-day conflicts and struggles, \u003ci\u003eIncarnations\u003c\/i\u003e is an authoritative, sweeping, and often moving account of a nation coming into its own.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A whirlwind tour of roughly 2,500 years of Indian history in 50 fast-paced chapters.  . . . Khilnani's writing is easy to read, yet authoritative. He has spent much of his career studying-India . . . [and] strives to connect the lives and ideas of his subjects to one another and to contemporary India . . . Readers can dip in and out of chapters randomly without being confused, but \u003ci\u003eIncarnations\u003c\/i\u003e is most rewarding when read from start to finish . . . To my mind the best thing Khilnani has done is to leave the reader wanting more.\" \u003cb\u003e—Vikas Bajaj, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"An incisive work of popular history . . . undercutting, irreverent, and impish. It attempts to show, through prodigious but lightly worn scholarship, how complex and heterodox the Indian past was, and how it has been, and continues to be, constructed . . . Khilnani offers a fresh, cosmopolitan way of examining the Indian past. Everywhere he looks he sees rivers of influence and thought and ideas.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eKaran Mahajan, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"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, \u003ci\u003eIncarnations\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eWilliam Dalrymple, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Incisive and elegantly written . . . A work of distinction.\" \u003cb\u003e—John Keay, \u003ci\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Revelatory, bold and contemplative . . . Scholarly and accessible, lively and deeply serious . . . Is this simply cashing in on the idea behind the blockbuster \u003ci\u003eA History of the World in 100 Objects\u003c\/i\u003e by Neil MacGregor? Can anyone ever match the erudition and verve of the erstwhile director of the British Museum? Yes and yes. And though this may be heretical, at times Khilnani may even have surpassed him.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A tour de force of intellectual history, engagingly written.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Khilnani is a rare blend of scholar and cracking travel writer . . . This exceptional book serves as a further reminder of India's great strengths.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e (UK)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Khilnani builds a mosaic of India's history since the time of the Buddha . . .  [and] shows how the past has been remade to serve present-day agendas . . . [\u003ci\u003eIncarnations \u003c\/i\u003eis] punchy, personal, and quick moving, creating an incentive to learn more.\" \u003cb\u003e—Andrew J. Nathan, \u003ci\u003eForeign Affairs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"It is hard to think of this mammoth task being executed any better. Even those who know Indian history well will be introduced to figures they did not know\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eand discover new things about familiar figures.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Telegraph \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Fuelled by a quiet, relentless curiosity and an extraordinary ability to capture the sweep of history. \u003ci\u003eIncarnations \u003c\/i\u003eis an essential, and timely, read . . . It is also an exceptionally liberating intellectual journey to take. Mr. Khilnani's prose is light and fast-paced . . . the solid labour of travel, research and meetings with other scholars as well as interviewees builds a stronger foundation for \u003ci\u003eIncarnations \u003c\/i\u003ethan most non-fiction books about India can claim. And a more entertaining one than most, too.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBusiness Standard \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"This is a terrific book. Each biography runs into 10-13 pages, and though the prose is deceptively easy, you probably want to take your time as you savour the book, perhaps reading a piece daily. Or even reading and rereading it in this fashion for a long time to come. I know I will be placing a copy with each of my children so that they may know, in these anxiety-inducing times, what it truly means to be Indian.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eMint \u003c\/i\u003e(India)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Khilnani’s choices are spirited, relevant, and aimed to provoke 'pressing contemporary questions' . . . immensely readable.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"An idiosyncratic and lively journey across 2,500 years of Indian history, offering bite-size essays on the lives of 50 exemplary figures whose achievements and afterlives have influenced contemporary Indian identity . . . Khilnani’s essays are provocative and serious, a worthy rebuttal to the image of Indian history as 'curiously unpeopled.'\"  \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"How does one capture the multifaceted complexities of a country like India? Historian Khilnani presents a novel approach: weave a tapestry of 50 figures from the country’s rich and ancient history that serves not only as an innovative introduction to the world’s largest democracy but also a gauge to evaluate how that past informs the present . . . The well-researched yet short chapters cover a lot of ground with ease, and Khilnani succeeds in achieving his goal of emphasizing the continued relevance of history.\" \u003cb\u003e—Poornima Apte, \u003ci\u003eBooklist \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9780374537210\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":40660250919118,"sku":"9780374537210","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_dd663869-45ec-4d68-a75c-1190e1a764d3.jpg?v=1639535612","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9780374537210","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}