John Keay is an English journalist and author renowned for his popular histories focusing on India and the Far East, particularly their encounters with European exploration and colonization. His writing is celebrated for a masterful blend of meticulous research, irreverent wit, and compelling narrative. Keay's lively prose and engaging storytelling have established many of his works as enduring classics. He offers readers a distinctive and insightful perspective on Asian history.
Defining a distinct style of painting produced in India during the British
period and influenced by European artistic norms, this catalogue of Company
Paintings in the TAPI (Textiles & Art of the People of India) Collection is a
unique illustration of the social milieu prevailing in India in the nineteenth
century.
Sowing the Wind examines the critical political underpinnings of conflict in the Middle East. Keay (known for his best-selling history of India) focuses on the hard-core countries of the Middle East known as the fertile Egypt, Jordan, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Keay's account is absolutely riveting as he follows the West's manipulation, management, and mismanagement of the Middle East from 1900 up through the ascent of Arafat to power in the early 1960s. He ends with a forty-page tour-de-force update of the last forty years of American negotiation of economic and political fault lines in the Middle East.Keay's sweeping history pre-Balfour to post-Suez unearths a host of surprising firsts, from the Gulf's first "gusher" to the first aerial assault on Baghdad, the first of Syria's innumerable coups, and the first terrorist outrages and suicide bombers.
An epic narrative history that compares and contrasts the fortunes of all the countries that make up South Asia. If British India had not been partitioned in 1947, its population would today be the world s largest. At c1.5 billion, Midnight s Descendants (the offspring of those affected by the midnight hour Partition) already outnumber Europeans and Chinese; and they are growing faster than either. They comprise all the peoples of what is now called South Asia (the preferred term for the partitioned subcontinent of modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, plus Nepal and Sri Lanka). Midnight s Descendants is the first history of the region as a whole. Correlating and contrasting the fortunes of all the constituent nations over the last six decades affords unique insights into what is hailed as one of the world s most dynamic regions. John Keay is an expert on the region and the book will be the first account to incorporate the rich story of South Asia s transnational, or diasporic, peoples from the overlooked narratives of the subcontinent to the rise of India as a global force, Midnight s Descendants will be expansive and tumultuous in the great tradition of India s narrative epics."
Two hundred years ago, India was seen as a place with little history and less
culture.Today it is revered for a notable prehistory, a magnificent classical
age and a cultural tradition unique in both character and continuity. How this
extraordinary change in perception came about is the subject of this
fascinating book. schovat popis
The story of both a dramatic journey retracing the historic voyage of France's
greatest 19th-century explorer up the mysterious Mekong river, and a portrait
of the river and its peoples today.
An Accessible, Authoritative Single-Volume Narrative History Of China, From The Earliest Times To The Present Day, That Will Both Engage The General Reader And Challenge The Horizons Of The China Specialist. Most Histories Of China Appear To Have Been Written By Sinologists For Sinologists. As China Rejoins And Perhaps Comes To Dominate Our World Order, The Need For An Authoritative Yet Engaging History Is Universally Acknowledged. Modelled On The Author'S India: A History, China: A History Is Informed By A Wide Knowledge Of The Asian Context, An Approach Devoid Of Eurocentric Bias, And Acclaimed Narrative Skills. Broadly Chronological, The Book Presents A History Of All The Chinas Including Those Regions (Yunnan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Manchuria) That Account For Two Thirds Of The People'S Republic Of China Landmass But Which Barely Feature In Its Conventional History. The Book Also Examines The Many Non-Chinese Elements In China'S History The Impact Of Buddhism, Islam And Christianity; The Effects Of Trade; The Nature Of 'Barbarian' Invasion; The Relevance Of Many Imperial Dynasties Being Of Non-Chinese Origin. Major Archaeological Discoveries In The Last Two Decades Afford A Chance To Flesh Out And Correct Much Of The Written Record. 'China: A History' Will Tell The Epic Story From The Time Of The Three Dynasties (2000-220 Bc) To Chairman Mao And The Current Economic Transformation Of The Country
Chronicles the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, a venture initiated by British army officer William Lambton to measure the earth's surface, and discusses its completion under Lambton's successor, George Everest.