Book Description
This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali. By turns rapturous and rueful, this wise and funny author (whom Booklist calls “Anne Lamott's hip, yoga- practicing, footloose younger sister”) is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.
Customer Reviews:
Self obsession takes a holiday.......2007-10-11
Things fall apart for Ms. Gilbert so she goes abroad to find herself and figure things out. So she travels, she reflects and she eats alot.
I have learned a few things after reading this book. If you eat alot of gelato you will gain weight. India is very hot. Even in paradise, people will try to scam you. Well, yes, there are many obvious observations like this in the book.
Also, I really question the premise of the book. I really dislike the the idea that she received an advance to create a book about finding yourself. If you are listening to me book publisher, give me an advance and I will travel and have witty things to say about different cultures too!!!
I think I liked this book for all the wrong reasons. I couldn't believe anybody would subject themselves to the harshness of that Indian ashram. I found it very funny that she went to India and they basically put her to work cleaning floors. And she mediatated alot. Wow, it really sounded like a cult, hard work and an enigmatic leader ! I couldn't wait to read about Bali! And it didn't dissapoint!
If you want to read the story of a flaky writer who goes abroad and is very SERIOUS about her life journey then this book is for you! Don't forget about the gelato warning!
Amazing !!!.......2007-10-11
I have to admit that this is the best book I've read in years !! Very good job !!
Loved it!.......2007-10-11
Not much else to say! I walked into a bookstore at an airport looking for a good read, and the owner suspected I'd enjoy this book. She was correct! I highly recommend it!
Read, Roll Eyes, Continue.......2007-10-11
I work at a bookstore, and this book has been flying out. I picked up a copy to see why. You've gotta admit, it's funny in parts. I don't expect it to have any "weight." But if you can keep moving over the speed bumps of neurotic self-indulgence, you can definitely get a few laughs. I'd say it's a quick and enjoyable read, unless you're expecting something with more meat on its bones. Borrow it from a friend: there are plenty of copies out there.
BRAVO Elizabeth!.......2007-10-10
I thoroughly enjoyed this book start to finish and plan to pass it on to my daughter and nieces. It was very disheartening to read the "slams" this author got from other women. I admire Ms. Gilbert; you don't get to where she is by being a slacker. That woman is well-educated and very disciplined. Writing a book is damn hard work and if any of the naysayers ever attempted one like this they would be eating their words. It also takes sheer guts to step out of the box like she did and brave foreign countries (alone, no less).
Don't knock it until you've tried it! (and succeeded)!
Book Description
Of all the tech tigers in India, Wipro is one of a handful that stands out from the pack. In the past five years, it has become one of the most accomplished tech services providers in the world, delivering business value through a combination of process excellence, quality frameworks, and service delivery innovation. Totally dedicated to customer satisfaction, Wipro is known to go above and beyond to make customers happy. It’s a move that’s paid off handsomely, with a 24 percent operating profit in its tech services division—more than twice the industry average.
Bangalore Tiger is the story of Wipro’s transformation and its impact on the tech services industry and the rules of global competition. BusinessWeek senior writer Steve Hamm takes you inside the halls of this transnational phenomenon to reveal the true secrets of Wipro’s superior business: its people, principles, and core competencies.
From Wipro’s triumphs to its missteps, Hamm mines a treasure of business lessons, explaining how and, more important, why it is necessary to:
- Expand quickly without stumbling
- Follow the new rules for outsourcers
- Innovate every day—or else
- Be obsessive about customers
- Motivate employees the Wipro way
- Plan three years ahead to prepare for rapid growth
Hamm also gives you a rare glimpse into the mind of Wipro’s charismatic chairman and thought leader, Azim Premji. Guiding Wipro’s growth every step of the way, Premji was one of the first business leaders in India to decree that his company would not pay bribes. You’ll see how his adoption of world-class business processes helped Wipro thrive—and how Wipro is helping to fulfill his dream of a better educated, more prosperous India. Removing the shroud of secrecy around Indian management principles, Hamm provides a real-world blueprint for operating a successful transnational organization, as viewed through the eye of the Bangalore Tiger.
Customer Reviews:
When your labor force only costs you 20 cents an hour instead of a dollar, then it is not all that difficult to compete!.......2007-09-14
This was a very good book. It is clearly written and easy to follow. It explains the 40-year history of one of India's most successful companies at present - Wipro. What started out as a peanut oil company owned by the current Chairman's father has morphed into a huge outsourcing company serving many of America's largest corporations. It has also become an adept mergers and acquistions company to help fuel its growth.
Since the book is a good read and it candidly explains how Wipro has grown over the past 40 years to become a multibillion-dollar company, I certainly recommend entrepreneurs, businessmen, and corporate executives take a look at it. However, the business principles cited are nothing new. And when the US economy tanks, then so will this company. Basically this company stands out because it is leaching off the US's elevated standard of living that cannot continue to exist if companies like Wipro continue to grow.
Two mornings ago I was reading a newspaper article about a lake in California that has been infested by Canadian Northern Pike. The Pike have no predators and they are killing the lake since they exist at the top of the food chain. I bring this up because Wipro is kind of like the Pike, and the US is kind of like the lake.
This book has five parts:
1. Taking on the West
2. People principles to lead by
3. Build on core principles
4. Success stories
5. How to inject the tiger in your own company
I'd give this book a 5 star rating if it had stopped at Part IV. But when it added Part V and tried to tout that Wipro was something for US companies to aspire to, I had to cut back a bit on my rating. If you were to drop Wipro into the US and force it to use US labor, then it would go belly-up. And that being the case, it certainly is not a poster child for US companies to examine.
What readers of this book should get from it is that the US is a lake and Wipro and other companies providing outsourcing services are a Pike. And if the US continues to let India, China, and Mexico provide cheap labor for US companies TO THE DETRIMENT OF US WORKERS, then the US is going to fail and at the same time the revenue source for these "pike " is going to fail. Not a good picture. 4 stars!
Excellent study of a high-tech trendsetter.......2007-08-24
From humble beginnings as a manufacturer of vegetable oil in India, Wipro reinvented itself, with stunning speed, as one of the world's leading providers of high-tech and business-process outsourcing (BPO) services to clients around the globe. Early in this decade, Wipro's annual revenues were $500 million. B the end of the first quarter of 2007, Wipro revenues had risen to $3.47 billion - a 41% increase over the same period in 2006. The firm is an acclaimed high-tech trendsetter. It received the accolade most prized by true business cognoscenti: becoming the subject of a Harvard Business School case study. The school examined how Wipro applied the principles of Toyota's "Lean" production system to its operations. So who is Wipro, what does the company do, and how did it become so successful so fast? We recommend that executives and managers read this book to discover the answers. Learn how your company can adopt the Wipro Way to turbocharge its operations.
A title with a much broader message!.......2007-07-09
Steve Hamm's Bangalore Tiger is a very readable book for anyone interested in understanding how Indian companies (Wipro is what he has showcased here) operate, or should operate, in today's global climate. As a journalist, Steve leverages both his observation skills and writing mastery, and, as a Westerner, looks at Wipro (and outsourcing) through an expert lens. His message is quite universal for anyone or for any company trying to succeed in today's world. Although the first four parts are Wipro specific, the subtext of his message in those parts is actually much broader in its implication. His final and the fifth part is the most useful for anyone who wants to emulate the success Wipro has achieved. All in all, it is a must read for anyone who is trying to understand how to work in India today. In fact, as their career coach, to many of my clients, who are transitioning back to India, I recomend them this title to round out their returning plans.
Indian outsourcers are now where the Japanese automotive companues were in 1969 - huge changes are coming.......2007-02-19
Steve Hamm has given us a useful book about an important company. The emergence of the big Indian outsourcers is one of the most promising developments of the past decade and is every bit as important as the rise of Toyota, Honda and the rest of the Japanese automotive industry. Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, HCL, NIIT (a smaller player, but important in learning and as an enabler) and of course Wipro are redefining the world of software services, and in all likelihood we are just at the beginning of the transformation that this will catalyze.
In Bangalore Tiger the story of the rise of Wipro from a small Mumbai food-oil company to a multi-billion dollar information services and business process outsourcer is well told. The discipline and vision of its management, led by Azim Premji, comes across clearly, as does the culture of efficiency, innovation, and customer service that he and his team have created. Extremely important for those of us who collaborate and compete with the Indian tigers is the way they have adopted and then transformed key management tools. The Indian tigers have shown true leadership in implementing CMM (the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model), making rigorous use of techniques such as UML (something Hamm misses in his book), ISO standards and even Six Sigma. Wipro's application of Toyota's lean production system to software and business services is an important development and one worthy of much more attention. The Deming is to Toyota as SEI CMM is to Wipro analogy works for me. And then to bring this full circle by applying the Toyota way to software is a lovely development.
So why only four stars? Part of this is a response to Hamm's irritating comments on US companies, which often seem to be poorly informed. In fact, people in Western services business work every bit as hard as those at Wipro, at least the ones I work with, and are as open and aggressive about applying new methodologies. The book also suffers from the occasional technical errors (I suppose his editors should have caught these). In order to get a fuller view of the rise of the Indian IT and business process outsourcers one must read much more widely on the overall structure of Indian business (the role of Indian generic drug manufacturers for example), understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Indian educational system, and put this in context of the emerging competitive partnership with China.
But read the book. I know Wipro reasonably well, have visited Indian companies in India, and try to keep current in the area, and I learned a great deal.
More Valuable When Generalized!.......2007-01-11
"Bangalore Tiger's" purpose is to provide insight and praise for Wipro, a large and growing outsourcing company in India. (Market capitalization 2/06 of $20 billion, vs. $13 billion for EDS - the original outsourcer.) However, the book's real value is to document outsourcing trends in the software and business process re-engineering areas. (Also remember that libraries are full of analyses of successful companies at the height of their impact, only to flame-out 2-3 years later.)
Hamm asserts that '03 profit margins at the top six Indian software etc. technology firms averaged 21.7%, vs. 4.3% for the top Western firms (eg. IBM, EDS, HP, etc.). While the Indian share was only 3% in '06, it had grown 33% in just the last year, and was projected to hit 10% by '08. Meanwhile, it is also expanding to legal, market research, online education, and medical areas. Experts believe India's economy will be the world's 3rd largest by 2050, behind China and the U.S.
Addition insight into the power of the Indian challenge is provided by returning to Wipro data: 1.2 million apply/year, but only 20,000 are hired. Wipro operates about 40 Centers of Excellence at any one time - these focus on integrating emerging technologies into business process.
Finally, as to the credibility of the Wipro (think India) threat - Hamm reminds us how people laughed at Toyota when it first sent cars to the U.S.
Large business managers and politicians need to read "Bangalore Tiger," as well as other books summarizing the China and illegal Mexican immigrant threats to the U.S. One may be OK - all three provide serious challenge.
Book Description
The greatest monument to love, and the lost world of the Agra gardens and their characterful owners, re-created through superb scholarship and evocative illustrations.
The Taj Mahal is the epitome of Mughal art and one of the most famous buildings in the world. Yet there have been few serious studies of it and no full analysis of its architecture and meaning.Ebba Koch is the only scholar who has been permitted to take measurements of the complex. She has been working on the palaces and gardens of Shah Jahan for thirty years and on the Taj Mahal itself—the tomb of the emperor's wife, Mumtaz Mahal—for a decade.
The tomb represents the house of the queen in Paradise, and the author shows how its setting was based on the palace gardens of the great nobles that lined both sides of the river at Agra. She leads the reader through the entire complex of the Taj Mahal, with an explanation of each building and an account of the mausoleum's urban setting, its design and construction, its symbolic meaning, and its history up to the present day.
The book features hundreds of new photographs plus drawings by the Indian architect Richard Barraud that include plans and reconstructions of Agra and the Taj complex as they looked in Shah Jahan's time.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent book!.......2007-09-26
Having visited the Taj Mahal, I wanted to have an authoritative book on the history behind its construction and this book is not only an excellent souce, but also a very good photographic record of this amazing Wonder of the World!
A Ten-Star Book that Is Without Parallel.......2007-04-15
Having read a number of books about the Taj Mahal, including the recently published "Taj Mahal: Passion and Genius...," I would bet good money that if given a copy of Ebba Koch's book to preview, those truly interested in India's national treasure will buy "The Complete Taj Mahal," even if they have to skip lattes or lunches to afford it, even if they have already done so to afford Okada/Joshi/Nou's "Taj Mahal" with its stunning photography.
One reason, of course, is that TCTM is so complete. To others' overviews of the material covered, I would add only that Koch does not neglect the human element. For example, in eight introductory pages of text, Koch provides excellent background information about Shah Jahan, his wife and his predecessors; later, she details Jahan's passion for building. Koch also includes interesting information about the artisans, craftsmen and laborers who did the actual work as well as details about others associated with the Taj-related structures/gardens of Agra. Further humanizing the story of this garden city are colorful Mughal paintings of its nobility and rulers.
Another aspect of TCTM that makes it a must-have are the many photographs of sites, structures and architectural ornamentation, photographs "The Hindu" declared "often brilliant" as well as "judiciously chosen." Just how apt these descriptions are is suggested by the following: There were only seven pages of O/J/Nou's photographic extravaganza of the Taj complex that I photocopied to tuck into Koch's book, and of them, five were additional close-ups of floral inlays and calligraphy. Adding to the appeal of TCTM is that the camera goes beyond the splendors of the Taj complex. Of special interest to those who have been in Agra, for instance, will be the realistic photographs of the Taj Mahal peeking above the "agglomeration of haphazard constructions" that have "almost obliterated" its bazaar and caravanserai. Shown, too, are its architectural precedents as well as artisan workshops and quarries. Though most of the photographs in this book are in color, even those in black and white are revealing.
Also making TCTM next to impossible to resist are the "company drawings," most of which are in color as well. Forerunners of postcards, they were "made by local artists in the early days of the Raj" for European tourists, who bought them "to illustrate their journals." Works of art in themselves, often the drawings are so detailed that they could easily be photographs. But they do not serve as mere eye candy: many are of Taj-related structures that no longer exist or have been stripped of all that made them magnificent; some are juxtaposed with recent photographs to show the toll time has taken on the brilliance of color and intricacy of design. Evocative paintings and watercolors of the Taj Mahal by foreign artists are included as well.
What may ultimately sell people on TCTM, however, is that it is a book they will actually enjoy reading much if not all of. Not only is Koch's narrative writing fluid and easy-to-digest. Even her descriptions of architecture will be relatively easy for laymen to understand, provided that they are willling to refer to the glossary of terms and look at the many visual aids, including Barraud's "precise and clear" line drawings, that accompany the text. So well done is this book, in fact, that as "The Hindu" noted, even "information which is more technical and not at face value so interesting to general readers will, in fact, be found by them to be equally absorbing." (All I would personally exclude from this are the two pages of precise measurements of the Taj complex.)
To another reviewer's assertion that TCTM is a book that "should be in the library of anyone fascinated by the Taj Mahal, not just historians and architects," I add a thousand "Amen's."
Agra the Extraordinary.......2007-03-16
A superlative volume showing in detail and with historic drawings, maps, and photos, as well modern illustrations and reconstructions the unsurpassed achievements of the Mughal in residential garden architecture. The riverbanks of the Yamuna River as it passes through Agra was where this artistic impulse achieved culmination in the seventeenth century garden residences and tombs sponsored by the nobles and rulers of the Mughal state and built by the craftsmen of India. One of the signal contributions of this book is the inclusion of the stories of the architects, carpenters, and masons who left their signatures and marks on the individual elements of the overall project. The residential and tomb gardens which stretched along the river and are now mostly gone gave way at midpoint to the grandest residence of all, the Red Fort which remains today the second greatest landmark of Agra. And at the southern end of the development stands today the greatest tomb ever built, one of the architectural wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal. The work is so complete that it documents not only the construction efforts but also the tourism that followed and the depth to which the Taj Mahal became embedded in the consciousness of the world. The culmination of three decades of meticulous research this substantial volume tells an engrossing story of the planning, development, and eventual decline of a unique garden city. It more than fulfills the adjective "complete" and should be in the library of anyone fascinated by the Taj Mahal, not just historians and architects. A truly extraordinary accomplishment.
Book Description
India remains a mystery to many Americans, even as it is poised to become the world’s third largest economy within a generation, outstripping Japan. It will surpass China in population by 2032 and will have more English speakers than the United States by 2050. In In Spite of the Gods, Edward Luce, a journalist who covered India for many years, makes brilliant sense of India and its rise to global power. Already a number-one bestseller in India, his book is sure to be acknowledged for years as the definitive introduction to modern India.
In Spite of the Gods illuminates a land of many contradictions. The booming tech sector we read so much about in the West, Luce points out, employs no more than one million of India’s 1.1 billion people. Only 35 million people, in fact, have formal enough jobs to pay taxes, while three-quarters of the country lives in extreme deprivation in India’s 600,000 villages. Yet amid all these extremes exists the world’s largest experiment in representative democracy—and a largely successful one, despite bureaucracies riddled with horrifying corruption.
Luce shows that India is an economic rival to the U.S. in an entirely different sense than China is. There is nothing in India like the manufacturing capacity of China, despite the huge potential labor force. An inept system of public education leaves most Indians illiterate and unskilled. Yet at the other extreme, the middle class produces ten times as many engineering students a year as the United States. Notwithstanding its future as a major competitor in a globalized economy, American. leaders have been encouraging India’s rise, even welcoming it into the nuclear energy club, hoping to balance China’s influence in Asia.
Above all, In Spite of the Gods is an enlightening study of the forces shaping India as it tries to balance the stubborn traditions of the past with an unevenly modernizing present. Deeply informed by scholarship and history, leavened by humor and rich in anecdote, it shows that India has huge opportunities as well as tremendous challenges that make the future “hers to lose.”
Customer Reviews:
A must read for anyone trying to understand modern India.......2007-09-18
This is an important book on modern India. Edward Luce has been a foreign correspondent in India for many years and knows the country well. He provides a comprehensive survey of the politics and economics of India going into the 21st century. I was initially disappointed by the opening pages dealing with a few new-age types living in luxury and marveling at the spirituality of India while completely ignoring the poverty. Reading on I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this was only an introduction to demonstrate what is wrong with many Westerner's perception of India. The book provides an unflinching look at India, warts and all. While some sections may seem overly critical, we live in an imperfect world and the same things are wrong in many other countries, to a greater or lesser extent. The rest of the world continues to function and even prosper and India does so too. The book also discusses the huge untapped potential of the country and the things that need to happen to assure future growth and development. I found the chapters on recent changes in religious practices and the rise of fundamentalism very eye-opening. The significance of attributing the domestication of the horse to the Indus Valley civilization is fascinating (I won't give this one away). In Spite of the Gods is a must read for anyone trying to understand modern India.
To spite the Gods?.......2007-09-15
I picked up this book when I was on a trip, mainly because of the intriguing title. I thought, well, here is someone who will tell us how our Gods hold us back economically. Especially, as many of us worship Lakshmi ji, the Goddess of prosperity, every day!
As it turns out, I was quite wrong. The title has absolutely no connection with the contents of the book, except perhaps to insinuate that India has progressed economically despite being religious. Or to help along sales. [Do note the rhyming with the original expression 'in spite of the odds'. Possibly Mr. Luce thinks that Hindu Gods were holding back India's progress, or that perhaps they are the real odds?]
The book is more or less a compilation of wisdom received from the author's Indian friends, and select social circle. I was unable to find any original insight or conclusion in the book. However, Mr. Luce does present the old and tired wisdom of assorted Indian intellectuals in a refreshingly witty way. In the end, the book is just a large collection of articles, such as you would find in any weekly or fortnightly newsmagazine or in any mainstream English language newspaper published in India. This is understandable, given the fact that Mr. Luce, after all is merely a journalist, used to regurgitating what others tell him. There is some useful information though, including tidbits about the high and mighty of Indian establishment.
Expectedly, Mr. Luce is most positive about and impressed with the economic side of Indian growth. He cites any number of examples of the growing economic strength and its implications. There may not be anything new in this, but the endorsement sounds nice, coming from a Western journalist.
However, his views on the cultural and religious aspects are a different thing altogether. He mostly holds the majority community as being directly responsible for India's perceived cultural backwardness, for the condition of the women and children, and for the distressing law and order situation. He also suggests that Bajrang Dal has been responsible for two out of three major riots in the last 25 years (the third being laid at the door of Congress). However, this is mere reductionism - he conveniently ignores hundreds of small riots which break out every year across India, on the slightest pretext.
This liberal confusion continues: when it comes to dealing with Muslims, he suddenly switches the canvas to South Asia, from just India! This serves two purposes: first it helps him cover the pre-1947 developments. Second, it allows him to include Kashmir in the discussion. Dealing with Kashmir within the framework of India would have perhaps been sacrilegious?
That said, it is therefore surprising to see an endorsement of the book by Mr. Mark Tully, whose work is as close to Mr. Luce's as North Pole is to South Pole. Perhaps Mr. Tully was merely helping along a fellow Briton. Or perhaps he was made to sign the endorsement using some frightfully sinister threat...
The book is very nicely bound, and the printing and paper is quite pleasing. So is Mr. Luce's writing style, humorous and engaging. However, sometimes it is a little tiring also, as you (as an Indian) sometimes feel that you are the [...]. of his jokes and gratuitous insinuations.
Buy this book if you quickly want to update yourself on the current perceptions of the fashionable and the intellectual. Skip it if you want to learn anything worthwhile.
Bad statistic.......2007-09-10
In discussing the low ratio of girls to boys, the author states that, in the West, there are 105 girls born for every 100 boys. That is not true. Even in the West, there are more boys born than girls. The numbers should be reversed.
Highly Recommended. Witty. Insightful. Modern. .......2007-08-22
I think some of the reviewers have done a good job of breaking down the book, so I'll just offer an opinion.
This is by far my favorite book this year, and not because I agree with everything the author has to say, but because I felt it was a good starting point for someone with little knowledge of India. It's filled with insightful information, humor, and does not read like some monotonous-tedious-textbook that drags on longer than it should.
I like that the author asks questions I would have liked to have asked, had I been there to do the interview. And I was impressed with the number of high positioned people he was able to interview. I appreciate that it's a modern book, and it deals with today's issues, explaining events that have happened in recent years that have been in the news, or haven't been. I didn't mind the author's opinionated views, and I don't quite understand why people think books have to be written from a neutral standpoint, which is a difficult thing to do, and most of the time leaves a book sounding dry.
This is a great book and I would recommend it to anyone. It's easy to read, filled with a lot of information, and gives you a good overview of what's going on with India. It certainly sparks an interest to read other books on the subject.
Biased?.......2007-08-14
While I liked the research done by Edward Luce for writing the book, there were many instances in the book when I felt his approach is very biased against the so called right-wing hindu nationalists. He is very critical about BJP and Vajpayee, Advani while painting a "great-soul" image for Sonia Gandhi. Also, he mentions Laloo Prasad Yadav as "witty" and sparsely mentions about the fodder [...] (in fact, I don't think he mentions at all). He mentions Sardar Patel just couple times and downplays his role in the freedom struggle and unification of India.
Oh and he talks about India's economy suffering so bad in the early days of independence. The 60s, 70s and 80s suffered due to bad policies and corruption but let us not forget that much of the economic plight was due to the British occupation and "mismanagement" of India's wealth. Let us not forget that in 1700 AD India's was the wealthiest country with 27% or more of the world's economy. India had problems and will have like any other country but British occupation was the worst we had! India's progress is surprising in spite of the years of tyranny and oppression by British AND the politicians following independence. Like a friend of mine said - India is not doing because of the politicians, India is doing well in spite of the politicians.
Jai Hind!
Book Description
On a hazy November afternoon in Rangoon, 1862, a shrouded corpse was escorted by a small group of British soldiers to an anonymous grave in a prison enclosure. As the British Commissioner in charge insisted, “No vestige will remain to distinguish where the last of the Great Moghuls rests.”
Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last Mughal Emperor, was a mystic, an accomplished poet and a skilled calligrapher. But while his Mughal ancestors had controlled most of India, the aged Zafar was king in name only. Deprived of real political power by the East India Company, he nevertheless succeeded in creating a court of great brilliance, and presided over one of the great cultural renaissances of Indian history.
Then, in 1857, Zafar gave his blessing to a rebellion among the Company’s own Indian troops, thereby transforming an army mutiny into the largest uprising any empire had to face in the entire course of the nineteenth century. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj’s Stalingrad: one of the most horrific events in the history of Empire, in which thousands on both sides died. And when the British took the city—securing their hold on the subcontinent for the next ninety years—tens of thousands more Indians were executed, including all but two of Zafar’s sixteen sons. By the end of the four-month siege, Delhi was reduced to a battered, empty ruin, and Zafar was sentenced to exile in Burma. There he died, the last Mughal ruler in a line that stretched back to the sixteenth century.
Award-winning historian and travel writer William Dalrymple shapes his powerful retelling of this fateful course of events from groundbreaking material: previously unexamined Urdu and Persian manuscripts that include Indian eyewitness accounts and records of the Delhi courts, police and administration during the siege. The Last Mughal is a revelatory work—the first to present the Indian perspective on the fall of Delhi—and has as its heart both the dazzling capital personified by Zafar and the stories of the individuals tragically caught up in one of the bloodiest upheavals in history.
Customer Reviews:
A poisenous book.......2007-09-25
Exquisitely researched and well written, describing past lives and events that appear as real as if the reader had been a material witness, this book's quality of writing reminds me of Dalrymple's "White Mughals", dealing with British servants of the East India Company who "went native" by adopting Muslim customs in the early decades of the Raj. In "The Last Mughal", however, Dalrymple has gone native himself, by trumpeting Muslim culture as superior to all things Western at every turn. Especially irritating are the infrequent but none-too-subtle parallels he draws with the present : it seems America is the new Raj, whose "undisguised imperial arrogance" rose after the fall of the Berlin Wall - a gratuitous opinion lacking any bearing on this book's subject, the end of the Mughal Dynasty in India. Dalrymple rants between the lines, describing the West - then and now - as nothing but a bunch of rapacious pilferers and murderers, who uproot delicately balanced, refined, pacifist, tolerant, and multicultural Muslim societies, composed solely of courtiers, courtesans and poets. This was, to use a British understatement, a trifle at variance with reality, as both Hindu and Muslim ruling classes of the period wallowed in disgusting wealth while their subjects lived miserable lives in abject poverty. The imperialist, but now long gone Raj at least curbed the worst excesses of the Indian princes and laid the foundations of modern India, from the civil service to railroad infrastructure, but not a word of this is whispered here. One virtue of the book is that it shows the true character of the disciples of the Prophet, who managed to turn a Hindu mutiny into a jihad in no time. Also instructive is Dalrymple's enthousiastic, gushing descriptions of sword-wielding jihadis "duly dispatching" helpless British women and children during the "Uprising", in stark contrast with the "brutal killings" by British "psychopaths". No doubt atrocities were committed on both sides, but the double standard in describing them rankles, while references to present "Western arrogance and imperialism" reveals the bias of the author who, by the way, prefers living in the arrogant West over residing in a delicately balanced, refined, pacifist, tolerant, and multicultural Muslim society. This is a poisonous book, unworthy of being termed objective historical writing.
no dry history book.......2007-09-15
A surprisingly readable history of a dark and troubled time in India's history. Britain rode roughshod over thousands of years of civilisation on the sub-Continent seeking to impose Christianity on an unwilling populace. The invaders believed that their way of life was simply superior to that of that of the subjugated masses. History continues to repeat these terrble crimes into the 20th and 21st centuries.
Simply Magnificent.......2007-09-07
Live in the Delhi of 1857. Watch and feel the vibrancy of the sophisticated and cultured life of Delhi. Read the most understandable account of the whats and whys of the Indian Mutiny. Literally watch an entire city of 150,000 people destroyed. Move along the roads and alleys of Delhi as its citizens are slaughtered by the avenging British Army greatly assisted by Indians themselves with a substantial part of the genocide underwritten by Indian moneylenders. You will get a first hand view of the end of the 300 year old Mughal rule on the subcontinent, and understand why religious extremism (represented in this book largely by evangalical christians) has done the world no good for centuries. You will be reminded about how very thin is the veneer of civilization and tolerance and that when it comes to slaughtering their own species there is no parallel to us humans.
A book of great beauty based on immaculate research with great relevance to today's world.
The standard by which all books on this subject will henceforth be judged.
timely.......2007-08-29
a fascinating commentary on british colonialism. dalrymple makes a convincing case for the mutiny being a harbinger of the empire's collapse. there are some clear parallels with the united states' current embroglios in afghanistan and iraq.
this is a must read, and is made much more enjoyable by an abundance of newly presented (and translated) historical documents that provide insight to ongoings of zafar's court and east india company. such documentation sheds light on the diverse religious/social dynamics of both sides of the conflict. i was astounded to hear that 60 % of the soldiers used by the british to control the sepoys were of indian descent (mostly sikhs, if memory serves).
"The light has gone out of India. The land is lampless.".......2007-08-12
A great strength of 'The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857' by William Dalrymple (White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India) is its use not only of more familiar British sources, but also many Indian (Urdu and Persian) sources on one of pivotal events in the history of both India and the British Empire, the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 or the First War of Indian Independence as it is also sometimes called.
Dalrymple describes his excitement at discovering some 20,000 Persian and Urdu documents in the Indian national Archives. A particularly important source was the 'Dihli Urdu Akhbar' a principal Urdu newspaper that continued to publish during the revolt. These sources allow Dalrymple to give voice to the Indian as well the British point of view.
In 1857 the sepoys of the British Raj's Bengal Army mutinied (the reasons are explored in the book, but were at least partly due to a clash of newly arrived Christian evangelicals and adherents of Islam and Hindu). What began as mutiny became something larger at least in part because the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II endorsed it.
Dalrymple centers his telling of the tale on Zafar, the man destined to become the last Mughal emperor. By 1857 the Mughal Emperor possessed no real tangible power and was nothing more than the King of Delhi as he was derisively called. An aesthete himself, Zafar was singularly well-suited to his role as head of a court that elevated culture, poetry in particular, but wholly unsuited by temperament and age (he was 82 years old) to a role as leader of an armed revolt.
Delhi before 1857 was a remarkably tolerant mix of Hindu and Islam - roughly a 50/50 split - in part because of Zafar's manner of ruling. Zafar's acceptance of a titular leadership in the revolt meant that both Muslims and Hindi rallied to the cause. That symbolic role, however, was about all Zafar brought to the war.
The revolt began to flounder almost immediately due a lack of proper direction and discipline. The Sepoy regiments each acted independently and allowed a much smaller British force (ostensibly come to lay siege to the city) to survive repeated but serial attacks. The early stages of the revolt also saw horrific slaughter of noncombatant and unarmed British residents.
Eventually the British took the city and the revenge they took is described by Dalrymple in bloody detail. The killings were nothing short of mass murder and heartily endorsed by nearly every Britisher with any knowledge of it (William Howard Russell was one exception). Men who had lost family in the initial outbreak were allowed to massacre at will for months - Theo Metcalfe is the most notable example. Those locals not killed were left homeless and starving.
The British executed nearly the entire Mughal royal family and would have done so for Zafar, but for the promise that his life would be spared if he surrendered. It was a promise that the British determined they were bound to keep even though they didn't like it much.
One supposes this example represents Victorian attitudes about rectitude that the British somehow held in their heads at the same time that they authored unspeakable murdering sprees. In a somewhat lighter example, Dalrymple quotes a British soldier's letter written to his mum on the eve of battle in which the youth expresses his fear that engaging in the fight may cause him to swear!
As stated at the outset the rich sources give 'The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857' its strength, but Dalrymple's over-reliance on the raw materials makes the book drag to its conclusion. For the last 100+ pages, Dalrymple sometimes gives over the narrative to his primary sources as page after page consists substantially of quotes from letters, reports, or memoirs. Dalrymple also spends only the briefest time placing the events of 1857 in a larger historical framework.
Nonetheless, the book is a triumph of research and offers that rarity in historical writing, the truly fresh perspective. Dalrymple gives voice to the Indian perspective of the fall of Delhi. As the great court poet Ghalib so poignantly expressed it, "The light has gone out of India. The land is lampless."
Highly recommended.
Average customer rating:
- An outstanding vision of the sad reality of this world.
- Amazingly tragic and beautifully awful
- A look at the true horrors of this world!
- Amazing!! Print Quality.
- Um relato dantesco e honesto da nossa época
|
Inferno
James Nachtwey
Manufacturer: Phaidon Press
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ASIN: 0714838152 |
Amazon.com
Though he is probably the world's most honored recent war photographer, James Nachtwey calls himself an "antiwar photographer," as the preeminent critic Luc Sante notes in his excellent foreword to Inferno, a landmark collection of 382 war-crime photos. Nachtwey has taken shrapnel and had his hair literally parted by a bullet, but he's never lost his compassionate outrage. The stunning images in this huge-format book--brutally abused Romanian orphans, Rwandan genocide victims, a rat-hunter family of Indian Untouchables barbecuing dinner, skeletal dehydration victims in Sudan, the miserable in Bosnia, Chechnya, Zaire, Somalia, and Kosovo--are excruciating to look at, yet impossible to tear your eyes away from. Nachtwey's art is meant to force us to face unbearable facts. Faces are the key: you can't gaze into the eyes of a Romanian toddler tied to a bed, or wired to a primitive "electromagnetic therapy" device, and not grasp the horror more fully than you would by watching a TV news item or reading a newspaper piece. (The book's text explains each photo's context.)
Inferno is also a masterpiece in strictly aesthetic terms. The power of Nachtwey's images transcends journalism. Bloody handprints on a living-room wall in Kosovo, the ghostly imprint of a Serb victim's vanished body on a floor, a Hutu with crazed eyes displaying the machete gashes he received for opposing the Tutsis' butchery, a howling orphan in a crib, one eye contracted in anger--these are compositions that depend, like Goya's, on the artist's skill as much as the subject's legitimate claim on our conscience.
Nachtwey's photographs make us capable of imagining that it could have happened to us. They are hard to forget, or forgive. --Tim Appelo
Book Description
Though he is probably the world's most honored recent war photographer, James Nachtwey calls himself an "antiwar photographer," as the preeminent critic Luc Sante notes in his excellent foreword to Inferno, a landmark collection of 382 war-crime photos. Nachtwey has taken shrapnel and had his hair literally parted by a bullet, but he's never lost his compassionate outrage. The stunning images in this huge-format book--brutally abused Romanian orphans, Rwandan genocide victims, a rat-hunter family of Indian Untouchables barbecuing dinner, skeletal dehydration victims in Sudan, the miserable in Bosnia, Chechnya, Zaire, Somalia, and Kosovo--are excruciating to look at, yet impossible to tear your eyes away from. Nachtwey's art is meant to force us to face unbearable facts. Faces are the key: you can't gaze into the eyes of a Romanian toddler tied to a bed, or wired to a primitive "electromagnetic therapy" device, and not grasp the horror more fully than you would by watching a TV news item or reading a newspaper piece. (The book's text explains each photo's context.)Inferno is also a masterpiece in strictly aesthetic terms. The power of Nachtwey's images transcends journalism. Bloody handprints on a living-room wall in Kosovo, the ghostly imprint of a Serb victim's vanished body on a floor, a Hutu with crazed eyes displaying the machete gashes he received for opposing the Tutsis' butchery, a howling orphan in a crib, one eye contracted in anger--these are compositions that depend, like Goya's, on the artist's skill as much as the subject's legitimate claim on our conscience. Nachtwey's photographs make us capable of imagining that it could have happened to us. They are hard to forget, or forgive. --Tim Appelo
Customer Reviews:
An outstanding vision of the sad reality of this world........2007-08-23
This book is not made to be placed in every hands. But everyone old enough to face the sad reality and the ugly side of the human kind should have a look at it.
Amazingly tragic and beautifully awful.......2007-08-19
I have owned this book for roughly four years now and somehow manage to revisit it at least twice a year. The images are hauntingly beautiful. Nachtwey has a real gift for photography, for capturing that perfect image, with the perfect contrast, stark, naked and vivid. I feel as if I have been not merely an onlooker of these devastatingly breathtaking images, but as though I have been there.
Inferno was the first exposure to Nachtwey I had had, and it certainly has not been the last. His work is amazing.
A look at the true horrors of this world!.......2007-08-03
Awesome, shocking, disturbing, eye opening, these just begin to describe the feelings and emotions of this book. The photographs of mans inhumanity to his fellow man go beyond those images we see on the nightly news. James Nachtwey shows us the world of war, famine and poverty. It is eye opening. For anyone who collects books of photography, this is a must, but, it is not a coffee table book. This is one that you keep in reserve for those days when you think your life if bad or tough. Take it down from the shelf, open it and realize just how hard it could be!.
Amazing!! Print Quality........2007-05-14
What can i say.
It's just wonderful print quality most of Photobook which i bouht.
and Large photo is good too.
Um relato dantesco e honesto da nossa época.......2007-05-11
Uma obra obrigatória para quem acompanha o melhor do fotojornalismo nos últimos 50 anos. Um relato duro, profundo e honesto dos horrores criados pelo homem: Romênia, Somália, Índia, Sudão, Bósnia, Ruanda, Zaire, Chechênia e Kosovo.
Ressalte-se a força extrema das composições de James Nachtwey, valorizadas pela encadernação primorosa em capa dura e pelas grandes ampliações em PB.
Um livro forte, mas profundamente necessário para quem quer reconhecer o lado menos poético do nosso tempo.
Average customer rating:
- The God of Small Things
- Very powerful....
- Katie
- Exhilarating, But Not For All
- I wanted to put this book down, but finished, it was worth it.
|
The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0060977493 |
Amazon.com
In her first novel, award-winning Indian screenwriter Arundhati Roy conjures a whoosh of wordplay that rises from the pages like a brilliant jazz improvisation. The God of Small Things is nominally the story of young twins Rahel and Estha and the rest of their family, but the book feels like a million stories spinning out indefinitely; it is the product of a genius child-mind that takes everything in and transforms it in an alchemy of poetry. The God of Small Things is at once exotic and familiar to the Western reader, written in an English that's completely new and invigorated by the Asian Indian influences of culture and language.
Book Description
The story of the tragic decline of an Indian family whose members suffer the terrible consequences of forbidden love,
The God of Small Things is set in the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India. Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, the twins Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family -- their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).
When their English cousin and her mother arrive on a Christmas visit, the twins learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever. The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.
Customer Reviews:
The God of Small Things.......2007-09-09
The God of Small Things is a work of sumptuous beauty, from the gorgeous dust jacket, to the lush prose, to its exotic metaphors, and not least to the story itself. It is a superbly written tale of childhood innocence lost in a world of jealousy and bigotry.
The setting is the author Roy's home state of Kerala, India. Most of the characters belong to the region's large and relatively prosperous Syrian Christian minority. Other characters are Roman Catholic and Hindu. Key events take place at a time when India's Communist Party was a major factor in national and local politics. And, on top of the complex matrix of religious and political beliefs, there are the social class divisions between Touchables and Untouchables.
The principal characters are Rahel and her fraternal twin brother Esta. They live with their mother Ammu, their grandmother, their great-aunt and their uncle Chacko. With great anticipation they are awaiting a visit from Chacko's ex-wife (now widowed from her second husband), and Sophie Mol, Chacko's daughter whom they have never met. Right from the start, however, we learn that Sophie Mol will die and Ammu be disgraced. How and why these tragedies happen, and their consequences, form the core of the novel.
Like a moth drawn to an open flame, the story line circles the time of Sophie Mol's death, darting years into the past at times, then into the future, but always returning ever closer to the events that will tear Rahel's family apart. Many of the chapters are told from Rahel's perspective as a child, and they are told with a child's wild and innocent imagination.
Despite its non-linear format, The God of Small Things is highly readable. Amid ever-growing suspense, Roy evokes the sights, sounds and smells of the Indian tropics. You can feel the heat and moisture amid the hum of life in this tense, sensuous and erotic story.
Very powerful...........2007-09-04
I also had a hard time getting through this book. I would read a chapter and put it down for a couple of days. I was distracted by the style of writing (very poetic) and kinda grossed out by some of the characters. I didn't even like the twins who are the main characters. There were several times when I didn't want to pick it back up to finish it.
I am so glad I did. I finished the book several days ago and am still haunted by the ending. I feel sad about Rahel and Estha but it was Velutha and Ammu's relationship which was the most powerful for me. How tragic and so beautiful. Definitely worth your time...
Katie.......2007-07-31
It's like reading beautifully dense poetry. It's a challenge at first that pays off in linguistics and intensity. It's incredible! Definitely recommend.
Exhilarating, But Not For All.......2007-07-31
As many reviewers have lamented, this is not a linear story, and it is indeed an effort and a challenge to begin and stick with, but for those who relish the rich, complex literary styles of writers like Faulkner and Morrison (think "Beloved"), The God of Small Things is an exhilarating reading experience. You will either be bothered by or adore Roy's poetic, lyrical, and often abstract, writing style. I adored it. It reminded me of the work I love by poets ee cummings and Ezra Pound. It is about feelings less than it is about facts.
I decided early on in the novel that I would let it carry me in along and that I would not get too bogged down by trying to always know what, exactly, was going on. Roy throws many threads out for the first half and then gracefully pulls them all together, skillfully weaving them into each other, until the story's moving and heartrending ending. This is a story about broken people in a broken society, about love and truth, about this insane thing we all know as our family, of happiness, sadness and loss and of the awesome, mind-boggling enormity of Life's small moments, small events, small things.
When I finished the last page, I turned back to the first and began it again. I will look forward to more works by Ms. Roy.
I wanted to put this book down, but finished, it was worth it........2007-07-24
I want to start out by saying that I never put a book down. I always finish them. This was one of those books that I thought about putting down, but decided to keep on going. It was defiantly worth finishing because I ended up enjoying it very much.
On reason why I wanted to put this book down was because I found it frustrating at first to read. I am a seasoned reader that reads quite a bit, but I thought that the author jumped around too much between stories, characters, and most importantly past and present. At first this may be confusing but after a lot of pages and you get the sense for the characters and time periods you get use to it. This was confusing at first because it would jump around from paragraph to paragraph, but after looking at the book as a whole the author did this to develop the story.
By time I got to the last 100 or so pages I could not put this story down. This is when everything starts to come together and what makes it all and all a great story. I admit it is frustrating reading the story about the secret with tons of foreshadowing that already happened. It almost makes you feel like you missed something while reading it, but once you get to those final pages everything starts to come together.
I am going to give this book, 4 stars. The reason for this is because I thought it was a great story that really came together the last 100 or so pages, but at times before that it was frustrating to read because of the authors writing style and jumping around so much early on.
All and all I would recommend this book to everyone because it poses many interesting issues and ultimately is a great story. If you feel like putting it down I would tell you to keep on reading because everything will eventually come together and make a great story.
Amazon.com
From Antarctica to Zimbabwe, if you're going there chances are Lonely Planet has been there first. With a pithy and matter-of-fact writing style, these guides are guaranteed to calm the nerves of first-time world travelers, while still listing off-the-beaten-path finds sure to thrill even the most jaded globetrotters. Lonely Planet has been perfecting its guidebooks for nearly 30 years and as a result, has the experience and know-how similar to an older sibling's "been there" advice. The original backpacker's bible, the LP series has recently widened its reach. While still giving insights for the low-budget traveler, the books now list a wide range of accommodations and itineraries for those with less time than money.
Explore the myriad wonders of India with this useful guide in hand. Whether you wish to cruise the backwaters of Kerala on the rooftop of a ferry, explore the Buddhist gompas of Leh, drink Darjeeling's namesake tea, get lost in the dusty bazaars of Hyderabad, or stroll the 16th-century ruins in Hampi, this book will help you get there. Highlights include more than 200 traveler-tested maps, thousands of places to stay and eat for all budgets, excellent health information, all you need to know about transportation options, and a 32-page color section on India's religions. --Kathryn True
Book Description
Remarkable, bewildering, totally irresistible - India offers a million different experiences, all at once, all the time. If you seek spiritual enlightenment, the thrill of scaling the mighty Himalaya, or the buzz of a modern hypermetropolis - or if you just want to lie on a tropical beach and count cows - discover the sensory overload that is India with this topselling guide.
• REST EASY in the best accommodation - from budget guesthouses to Rajput palaces
• ENRICH YOUR EXPERIENCE with our chapters on India's extraordinary history and culture
• ESCAPE THE CROWDS and see the India beyond the tourist trail: little-known national parks, remote tribal villages and stunning mountain treks
• TELL YOUR KULFI FROM YOUR KULCHA with our comprehensive chapter on Indian cuisine, remote tribal villages and stunning mountain treks
• FIND YOUR WAY from Kargil to Kanyakumari and back again with the help of detailed transport information and over 200 maps
Customer Reviews:
Great, Extensive, and Very Helpful.......2007-09-23
This book was very helpful. It has chapters on every region in India. It gives good hotel recommendations. It also describes what to see if you are only in a place for some number of days, which is very helpful. The only negative is that it is too big to carry around everywhere.
They never disappoint.......2007-07-22
Being an avid traveler, I have always trusted Lonely Planet guide books and I've never been disappointed. With India being such a big country, I am impressed with the amount of information provided in order to have a wonderful experience. I'm currently planning my trip to India and it has proven to be very helpful so far!
Lonely Planet India.......2007-07-04
More information than most people need. Maps are small and hard to read. Text is easier to read than the Rough Guide. Wish Lonely Planet would publish a guide to Northern India at a decent price. Most travelers only need the areas around Rajasthan, Delhi, Agra, and Varanasi.
Lonely Planet India Guidebook.......2007-06-07
This is a comprehensive book covering the sites and the history of India. An excellent companion for the trip.
quality still not high.......2007-05-22
As with all LP guides, success and industrial-style production have brought wealth to the owners but quality has suffered. This book doesn't have as many egregious errors as some previous editions, but it's still weak in many ways. Although sometimes it's delightful, like when the Great Value Hotel in Dehradun is praised for having a candle in each room "for romantic lighting"!! (Anyone who has been to India knows what the candles are really there for---emergency lighting for when the power fails, which can happen daily.)
Average customer rating:
- Great book for all ages, really!
- A lot to learn, including girl-power
- a tale to delight both young and old
- One grain of rice = many valuable lessons for students
- One Grain of Rice A Mathematical Folktale
|
One Grain Of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale
Demi
Manufacturer: Scholastic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 059093998X |
Amazon.com
Exotic, beautiful, and instructive, this "mathematical folktale" by author-illustrator Demi emerged from her love of India. The narrative and the evocative illustrations combine to create a real sense of the culture and atmosphere of this romantic land.
It's the story of Rani, a clever girl who outsmarts a very selfish raja and saves her village. When offered a reward for a good deed, she asks only for one grain of rice, doubled each day for 30 days. Remember your math? That's lots of rice: enough to feed a village for a good long time--and to teach a greedy raja a lesson.
Book Description
A reward of one grain of rice doubles day by day into millions of grains of rice when a selfish raja is outwitted by a clever village girl.
Customer Reviews:
Great book for all ages, really!.......2006-12-29
I have purchased 5 copies of this book - one for my kids and the rest as gifts. I've also suggested it to others to give children as gifts. My older son is 2 1/2 years old and he enjoys this book. Certainly, I can expect an older child, around 5 or older, to get more of the mathematical detials from the book, but my son likes it too.
Instead of reading the numbers aloud, I show him that Rani shared the single grain of rice with this bird, 2 grains with that peacock.. the bagful of rice with the tiger... etc. He loves it. The illustrations are outstanding!! I always feel like I'm reading a book from the "royal" archives when I pick this up.
Enjoy!
A lot to learn, including girl-power.......2006-04-19
This is Demi's re-telling of an old folktale of a king who orders that all rice in his kingdom must be stored in the royal granaries so that there would be food in times of famine; but when his people start to go hungry, he refuses to open the granaries, claiming that the situation was not bad enough to warrant doing so - until a small child outsmarts him by asking for a grain of rice doubled every day for a month.
I love this book because there is a lot to be learned from it. Of course, there is the math: the concept of doubling and how quickly doubling makes the numbers grow. There is the art: lovely Indian-inspired illustrations with stunning gold effects. There are also moral lessons, namely that power can corrupt, and that even a small child can teach a mighty king.
Then, there is a special lesson for all little girls everywhere - that girls can do math. After all, the math-smart hero of the story is a little girl herself.
a tale to delight both young and old.......2005-11-02
My daughter is three and loves this book -- not just for the gorgeous fold-out illustrated spread of the caravan of elephants carrying the rice on the 30th day -- but because she can follow along with the story. The tale is of a rich greedy rajah who doesn't want to share, but is then outwitted by a young girl and forced to give up all the grain in his storehouses. At the end, he is humbled and vows to be a more fair and wise ruler. My daughter loves to sit with one grain of rice in her hand like Rani on the title page of the book. I can see her forming rudimentary mathematical concepts, but I won't push it. There's plenty of time to return to this book when we introduce the times tables.
The visual progression of the increasing volume of rice is shown by the variety of animals which deliver the daily ration. First, just a series of birds with grains of rice in their beaks. Then on to a leopard, a tiger, and a lion each carrying a small pouch in their mouths. By the sixteenth day, a goat is pulling a cart on which sits a bag of rice. On the twenty-fourth day, eight deer each bring her a basket strapped to their backs. And so on until the enormous procession of elephants! The last page of the book is a very useful table called "from one grain of rice to one billion" which shows the actual numerical progression. Demi outdid herself with this book, which any homeschooling family will find useful.
One grain of rice = many valuable lessons for students.......2005-08-29
One Grain of RIce is not only a book of math, it is also a folktale. It shows how rice can grow from one grain, to two grains,to four grains, to 8 grains to 16 grains and all the way up to a whole barn full of grain.
It also tells of how people were treated by the leaders of the country in which they lived. A very valuable lesson.
One Grain of Rice A Mathematical Folktale.......2004-10-18
The story One Grain of Rice A Mathematical Folktale, has a worthwhile theme, teaching morals and the importance of keeping one's promises. The book also touches on the need to plan for the future, as well as teaching a mathematical concept. The book tells the story of a village girl named Rani who outsmarts a raja; teaching him a valuable lesson in the process.
The illustrations are just as important as the text in telling and moving the story along. The drawings of Rani appear to move across the page--drawing the reader's eyes to follow her to the next page of the story. The book evokes the reader's curiosity and encourages him/her to predict the outcome of the story. The reader is touched on an emotional level with the introduction of the real-life situation of famine and one person's humanitarian solution to the problem.
From a mathematical viewpoint the story provides a base on which to build and expand one's knowledge of patterns and relationships; encouraging the use of algebraic thinking in order to solve the mathematical problem presented in the story. A problem I had with the story was that I felt the story was written at about a 1-4th grade level while the mathematical question it presented was more appropriate for a 6th grade classroom. The book dealt with this by including double-page fold outs that helped to illustrate to younger readers how the number of grains of rice were growing. My favorite aspect of the book was the use of the female character of Rani. The book showed that females are capable of understanding and in some cases outsmarting males when it comes to mathematical concepts and knowledge.
One Grain of Rice provides a multitude of opportunities for teachers and students to research and expand on details presented in the story. Students may want to explore the culture, art, and governments of other countries such as India. They may also want to learn about the different types of animals illustrated in the story, or discover where rice comes from and how it is grown. Teachers may want to expand the mathematical lesson further by giving his/her students the task of discovering how many people the rice Rani received as her reward would feed. The book One Grain of Rice A Mathematical Folktale would be a wonderful addition to any library or classroom.
Product Description
This acclaimed autobiography presents a fascinating portrait of one of the great spiritual figures of our time. With engaging candor, eloquence, and wit, Paramahansa Yogananda narrates the inspiring chronicle of his life: the experiences of his remarkable childhood, encounters with many saints and sages during his youthful search throughout India for an illumined teacher, ten years of training in the hermitage of a revered yoga master, and the thirty years that he lived and taught in America. Also recorded here are his meetings with Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Luther Burbank, the Catholic stigmatist Therese Neumann, and other celebrated spiritual personalities of East and West. Autobiography of a Yogi is at once a beautifully written account of an exceptional life and a profound introduction to the ancient science of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation. The author clearly explains the subtle but definite laws behind both the ordinary events of everyday life and the extraordinary events commonly termed miracles. His absorbing life story thus becomes the background for a penetrating and unforgettable look at the ultimate mysteries of human existence. Considered a modern spiritual classic, the book has been translated into more than twenty languages and is widely used as a text and reference work in colleges and universities. A perennial bestseller since it was first published sixty years ago, Autobiography of a Yogi has found its way into the hearts of millions of readers around the world. This edition of Autobiography of a Yogi includes extensive material added by the author after the first edition was published, including a final chapter on the closing years of his life.
Customer Reviews:
It all sounds lovely, but...........2007-09-24
This book was a great read, all the way through, and a great introduction to Hindu philosophy. Some things that struck me about it though, are:
1) The almost homoerotic devotion to the guru: As a Westerner, I suppose I am finding the idea of having a guru as a prerequisite for enlightment off-putting. I don't like the idea that I can't do it myself.
2) The author extolls the benefits of Kriya Yoga all through the book as a speedy path to enlightment, but he doesn't tell how to DO it. In order to find out, you have to PAY for the lessons. That's another thing that discourages me about about Eastern philosophy, the idea that you have to be "initiated" into "secret" knowledge. And before you can get that knowledge, someone has to deem you worthy. You have to be "approved".
3) The culture is misogynistic. Paramahansa Yogananda, who travels with a male secretary, interacts with and discusses few women. And when he does discuss a few female "saints" toward the end of the book, particularly in his depiction of Ananda Moyi Ma, I thought that his tone was condescending.
4) The goal of the book was to describe living "saints" who perform miracles just like the ones that were attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, and then point out the similarities between Christianity and Eastern philosophy. It was at that point that I really began to lose interest, because considering the way that Christianity has been used as a political tool by the Bush administration, I did not think that making comparisons to Christianity was enhancing my view of Hinduism.
Classic...a must read.......2007-08-25
This is the first spiritual book I read, and too this day I read it about once every 2 years. I always find this book an inspiration.
When people ask me to recommend one book - this is the one I recommend.
The best spiritual biography . . . . Ever.......2007-06-17
I read this books about 3 years ago but since that point it has changed my life. The teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda are some of the most excellent teachings in the world . . Bar none. Eventhough, I am not his disciple. Paramahansa's teachings are priceless and is something that we should all study and implement in our lives.
A Spiritual Classic For the Ages.......2007-06-07
Words truly do not do justice to this classic work by Paramahansa Yogananda who wrote one of the premiere books about the science of Yoga.
Yogananda not only helps to introduce Yoga science to the West, but also demonstrates that yoga (which means "union") is the unifying science that shows the underlying truth among ALL religions. Using many scriptural passages from both the Bible and the Hindu Bible (the Bhagavad Gita), he also demonstrates that they are saying, essentially, the same thing; the same TRUTH.
This book chronicles the life of Mukunda La Ghosh whose passion and yearning for God leads him to many saints and sages in India.
We find that it is the wish of Jesus Christ and Babaji (One of India's great masters who has been living for an untold number of centuries) that it be revealed to the world that TRUTH is universal and that it does not matter what path you've chosen (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc.)
Whether you are religious or not, you will find this masterfully well-written work touch you in ways that you've not dreamed of. Yogananda orchestrates chapters about the astral realms, great scientists, poets, saints (in India as well as in the West), masters, Gandhi, and others which are both moving and inspirational.
This book also reveals, for the first time to Westerners the lost science of Kriya Yoga (which means, "Divine Union"), which is a scientific technique to develop direct experience of God. Yogananda explains this technique, its history, and why it is so effective.
This is a book that can be read many times, and you will find that each time, it still has a "divine" effect. If nothing else, it will help you to ask yourself about your Self. This is one of the greatest books ever written, not only of modern times, but of ALL time.
Life Changing.......2007-05-13
I have been looking for this book my entire life. It presents spirituality from a direction that we all know exists, but find very few people with the integrity to uphold it. Yogananda takes one over the indoctrinated hump of fear and into the blessings of divinity that is available for all.
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