Rudrangshu Mukherjee

The Golden Road: Dalrymple revives a forgotten India for modern readers

This is a book that should not be missed by anyone interested in the world of ancient Indian cultures

The forgotten revolutionary

The background of Rash Behari Bose bore none of the marks of privilege and distinction that were so prominent in the career of Subhas Chandra

A 'search' for Ashoka

Olivelle has written a thought-provoking book. He has scrupulously avoided the hagiographic sources about Ashoka because he feels they contain too many uncertainties

Maulana Azad: Proud Indian, proud Muslim

Azad, according to Dr Habib, was not comfortable in the presence of a crowd. He sought the solitude that is conducive to scholarship

The last days of Mughal Delhi

The best sections in the book are those that deal with the revolt of 1857 in Delhi

A hundred years of Anandabazar Patrika: In black and white and red

A voice of protest, of struggles and aspirations, Anandabazar Patrika embodied the spirit of a nation in the making, writes Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Massacre in a Bagh

Datta's book made it clear that the horror of the massacre shaped the making of Gandhi and the nationalist movement he led

Archaeologist as public servant

Nayanjot Lahiri deftly portrays the career of one of independent India's pre-eminent but little-known archaeologists

The spy who loved humanity

A new biography of Klaus Fuchs, the celebrated physicist who passed nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, forces readers to rethink their idea of what constitutes treason

Dinyar Patel's book, Naoroji, fills a gap in major historical scholarship

Historical scholarship has been so preoccupied with the later nationalists - Gandhi, Patel, Nehru, Bose et al - that it has neglected, or been indifferent to, the individual who started it all.

Maoism: A Global History is a milestone in describing a harrowing legacy

Julia Lovell's book on Maoism is concerned with understanding the phenomenon of Maoism when it swept the globe, in some places politically and in most places ideologically and intellectually.

The art of cricket: A book on the life, foibles and all, of Neville Cardus

Hamilton has written a marvellous book about a now-forgotten figure. It will be enjoyed by all those who remember and value cricket

Book review: No clash of cultures in India during the Persianate age

Richard Eaton employs rich empirical detail to demonstrate that intellectual encounters between the Sanskrit and Persian worlds were not tied to any one religion and that the two were not hostile

People cannot be taken for granted in democracy, says Rohit De's new book

Rohit De's carefully crafted history shows that the people and their awareness of their own rights cannot be taken for granted or ridden roughshod by the state and political parties

The British in India: Gilmour's book typifies revisionist history writing

Gilmour reconstructs the lives of the Britons in India with loving detail but one misses the distance that separated the rulers from the ruled

Book review: Ramachandra Guha's meticulous reconstruction of Gandhi's life

The detail in Ramachandra Guha's magisterial biography occasionally comes at the cost of interpretation and meaning

The Skull of Alum Bheg: Wagner unfolds chapter of 1857 uprising in Sialkot

The skull of Alum Bheg should perhaps stay in England to remind 'civilised' Englishmen how their forefathers dealt with recalcitrant colonial subjects

Aurangzeb, unreconstructed myth

This is a very disappointing book on a very important subject. Aurangzeb still awaits his historian

King of hearts

Rosie Llewellyn-Jones has written a well-researched book on Wajid Ali Shah, Awadh's ill-fated last ruler, but ignores the significant cultural context of his reign in Lucknow