Showing titles in South Asia

On 3 June 1947, as British India descended into chaos, its division into two states was announced. For months the violence and civil unrest escalated. With millions of others, Marina Wheeler's mother Dip Singh and her Sikh family were forced to flee their home in the Punjab, never to return...

The Indus rises in Tibet, flows west across India, and south through Pakistan. For millennia it has been worshipped as a god; for centuries used as a tool of imperial expansion. Empires of the Indus follows the river upstream and back in time, taking the listener on a voyage through two thousand miles of geography and more than five thousand years of history redolent with contemporary importance.

A brilliantly original history of the First World War, re-tracing the footsteps of the Indian Army's 1.5 million men who in 1914-18 served about the globe from Europe to Africa, Asia and the Indian Ocean. After years of neglect, The Indian Empire at War raises the curtain on the Indian soldiers'...

Sir Mark Tully was the BBC’s Foreign Correspondent in India from 1972 to 1994. He has become familiar to listeners around the world for his incisive and thought-provoking reports. On this special recording, he looks back at a career that coincided with a remarkable period in Indian history...

With the engaging style of a true storyteller, Ghee Bowman reveals for the first time the astonishing story of the Indian contingent–the Muslim soldiers who fought in the pivotal Battle of Dunkirk–from their arrival in France on 26 December 1939 to their return to an India on the verge of Partition.

Who are we Indians? Where did we come from? To tell us the story of our ancestry, journalist Tony Joseph goes 65,000 years into the past–when a band of Homo sapiens first made their way from Africa into the Indian subcontinent. These were the First Indians. Citing recent DNA evidence, he traces the subsequent large migrations of modern humans into India–of a people related to early farmers of Iran who mixed with the First Indians at the latest between 5400 BCE and 3700 BCE and of the ‘Arya’ between 2000 BCE and 1500 BCE, among others.

Yoga is so prevalent in the modern world - practiced by pop stars, taught in schools, and offered in yoga centers, health clubs, and even shopping malls - that we take its presence, and its meaning, for granted. But how did the current yoga boom happen? And is it really rooted in ancient Indian practices, as many of its adherents claim? In this groundbreaking book, Mark Singleton calls into question many commonly held beliefs about the nature and origins of postural yoga (asana) and suggests a radically new way of understanding the meaning of yoga as it is practiced by millions today.

India has a rich history covering thousands of years, civilizations, the rise of religions and empires, British rule, revolution, independence, and much more. In this book, we explore the magnificent history of India, from its ancient origins to its renaissance and concluding with its independence as a free nation. While there are many books that explore India’s unique history, few are enjoyable. Most books are hopelessly dry, academic, and downright difficult to follow. This concise history will respect your time by getting right to the point and giving you what you came to learn.

In the feverish tropics of the Andaman Islands, a young Botanist tends to a fragile rose he has imported to welcome his bride. Hoping their marriage will bloom in this strange life, hundreds of miles from the East Coast of India, he is entranced by Chanda Devi's fierce nature and unusual gifts; speaking to trees and the ghosts of former colonialists. These islands, she tells her adoring husband, rest on a fault line, cracked so deep into the earth that spirits cross the boundary freely. But it is not this fracture that takes a tragic bite out of their happiness. 

Welcome to Long Story Short, an Audible Original podcast brought to you by Paperclip Media & Entertainment production. Join us on this wonderful journey through India's rich and unforgettable past. Come along with us on Season 1, where each episode will transport you to distant foreign lands to rediscover stories with lasting legacies that are not talked about enough.

WINNER OF THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY ‘A narrative of startling originality … As discussions of Britain’s colonial legacy become increasingly polarised, we are in ever more need of nuanced books like this one’ SAM DALRYMPLE, SPECTATOR Rebels Against the Raj...

Nobody expected the liberation of India and birth of Pakistan to be so bloody - it was supposed to be an answer to the dreams of Muslims and Hindus who had been ruled by the British for centuries. Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi's protégé and the political leader of India, believed that Indians were an inherently nonviolent, peaceful people. Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a secular lawyer, not a firebrand.

Winner of the 1997 Booker Prize. The richly exotic story of the childhood the twins Esthappen and Rahel craft for themselves amongst India’s vats of banana jam and mountains of peppercorns. Here, perhaps, is the greatest Indian novel by a woman. Arundhati Roy’s ‘The God of Small Things’...

India-a cradle of civilization with five millennia of history, a country of immense consequence and contradiction-often defies ready understanding. What holds its people together-across its many cultures, races, languages, and creeds-and how has India evolved into the liberal democracy it is today?

Bhagat Singh is a name that became synonymous with revolution in India’s struggle for Independence. This young boy brought about a change in the way people thought about freedom. He was well read and fought extensively for rights – his own, his comrades’ and his countrymen’s. This book is a collection of 18 of his valued writings from within the walls of prison and outside it, which show us the resolve in his words, and the bravery in his acts subsequently.

Have you ever wondered about the gods and goddesses in Hindu religion? Have you wondered about what goes on in a country where over a billion people live? Well, you’re at the right place. In this comprehensive guide to Indian mythology, you will listen to various aspects of what they used to worship and still worship in this subcontinent with its vast history. You will hear about the Hindu epics and stories, the deities in their respective forms, and so much more.

Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption.

In 1943 Winston Churchill and the British Empire needed millions of Indian troops, all of India's industrial output, and tons of Indian grain to support the Allied war effort. Such massive contributions were certain to trigger famine in India. Because Churchill believed that the fate of the British Empire hung in the balance, he proceeded, sacrificing millions of Indian lives in order to preserve what he held most dear. The result: the Bengal Famine of 1943-44, in which millions of villagers starved to death.

For nearly 1,000 years, from the destruction of temples and monasteries by Muslim invaders in the 11th and 12th centuries, followed by Hinduism’s increasing power, Buddhism vanished from the country of its origin. Though hugely influential throughout Asia, the religion was forgotten in India.

Can one of the most divided nations on the planet become its next superpower? James Crabtree reveals the titans of politics and industry shaping India in a period of breakneck change from controversial prime minister Narendra Modi, victor in the largest election in history, to the leading lights of the country's burgeoning billionaire class. While King of the Good Times Vijay Mallya languishes in exile in Britain, other major Bollygarchs prosper at home despite a series of scandals.