India by Michael Wood Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of India
Book Review: A vivid journey through the history of India
Summary: 5 Stars
I had to write because I do not understand the negative reviews of this fabulous book. The writing is so vivid you can picture each of the places he discusses even without the beautiful photographs. Wood knows how to tell history as a rich narrative. I thoroughly enjoyed the recent books on Indian history, "Indian Summer" by von Tunzelmann and "In Spite of the Gods" by Luce, but this epic tale of the entire sweep of Indian history from prehistory to today is even better. I can't imagine what the negative reviewers are looking for. I find this a remarkably rich and varied tale, well told. I highly recommend it.Book Review: Excellent Book About a Fascinating Country
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the companion to the PBS series narrated by the author regarding the history and culture of India. India is a fascinating country that is growing geometrically in importance, making this a particularly educational and worthwhile purchase. For what you get, the price is unrealistically LOW.Book Review: Film-maker's take on the history of India
Summary: 3 Stars
History is an opinionated art form which must rely on science, technology and archeology to constantly refine its opinions, and sometimes convert opinions to facts. The history of India written by Indians and non-Indians follows a viewpoint defined by European sources, ancient Chinese sources, and medieval Muslim sources. While sometimes useful, this trajectory often follows an opinionated path, often colorized and divorced from reality, as illustrated, for example, by the opinions of Romila Thapar and her school of thought. The cautious historian does not negate any piece of evidence, be it archeological, oral tradition, living traditions, in addition to scripture evidence, preserved writing and paintings, rock-inscriptions, etc. It takes a great leap of bigotry or is just poor scholarship to negate a whole set of traditional evidence as irrelevant, as exemplified by Romila Thapar, and unfortunately continued by Michael Wood.
The book offers selected vignettes from Indian history from pre-historical to the current time. The book has a lot of valuable illustrations and photographs collected from museums in the Indian sub-continent. This is the biggest plus of this book, written by a documentary film-maker, and less a historian. Additionally, I liked his reporting archeological evidence from as recent as 2005. Unfortunately, he trashes Indian epics as non-history (never mind that satellite imagery has revealed the existence of the Vedic-era river, Saraswati, and the submerged city of Krishna Dwaraka off the Western coast). Then when he discusses British rule in India, he could not have selected softer kid-gloves. His credibility as a historian is shot in just these two aspects. As a historian he has fallen prey to becoming a victim of his opinions, rather than an unbiased examination of the evidence.
Read this book for what it is - a film-maker's view of selected episodes of Indian history and enjoy the imagery presented. For authoritative history, you must look elsewhere.
I am giving this a 3-star, but I will value the glossy book with its important collection of photographs and illustrations, on my book-shelf, as well as the DVD.
Book Review: PIcturesque claptrap
Summary: 1 Stars
Nice photos. But...
On the one hand we have misty-eyed, politically-correct nostalgia for the few Moslem leaders who tolerated Hindus and Buddhists and were thus assassinated as apostate and replaced by their more pious brethren.
Contrast this with the condemnation of the British East India Company depicted as a roll model for today's multinationals "who (sic) exercise the power of life and death over large swathes of the world." (p. 217)
Give yourself a break and skip the text.
Anybody know a good history of India?
Book Review: Well written history, lovely photos
Summary: 4 Stars
I was delighted with Michael Wood's PBS series, "The Story of India," so decided I must have his book. (I am planning a second trip to India at the end of the year.) I have only completed the first few chapters at this writing. While the text is erudite, but lucid, I find it maddening to have to keep turning back to the only map the book has on pg. 6. And then, most of the places he speaks of in his narration aren't even on that map! How I wish that the beginning of each chapter would have had a close-up map of that part of the country he discusses! And, it would also be helpful if he gave a clue about the new name/old name for places, as well.