Product Description In conjunction with the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund in New Delhi, Oxford proudly announces the reissue of Glimpses of World History and The Discovery of India, two famous works by Jawaharlal Nehru. One of modern day's most articulate statesmen, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote a on a wide variety of subjects. Describing himself as "a dabbler in many things," he committed his life not only to politics but also to nature and wild life, drama, poetry, history, and science, as well as many other fields. These two volumes help to illuminate the depth of his interests and knowledge and the skill and elegance with which he treated the written word.
A Masterpiece For All TimeOctober 28, 2008 Having grown up watching the classic television adaptation of the book, I have always had a great admiration for Pandit Nehru. A few years back I bought the book and it was sheer joy to read through and to get to know India personally. Even though I am an Indian, I would say, that I felt more close to India after reading this book. I would bet, this is one history book you will not put down for sure.
In today's perspective, when everyone is looking at and talking about India, there are lots of misconceptions. Unfortunately, most of us (Indians) have forgotten our roots and have no clear idea of our own country. I would bet you pick up randomly any number of Indians and ask him or her about the history of India, and everyone will come up with his own version, which is almost always far away from truth. I have to accept that I too belong to that category, but now with "The Discovery of India" by my side, I believe I won't go wrong. For instance, how many of us know that the real inhabitants of India, the real Indians were actually the South Indians (Dravidians) and rest of us are all Aryans the non-inhabitants? How many of us know that the so called caste "Kshatriyas", "Brahamans", "Shudras" had nothing to do with religion but was an indentification of one's occupation? How many of us know that the word "Hindu" didn't mean "a person who follows Hinduism" but "The citizens of Hindustan"?(Pardon me if I hurt someone, but that it is a fact. If you already know, then hats-off to you)
I personally believe, every Indian must read this book and more so every politician, the current bunch of people regardless of whichever party they represent, because none of them have any idea what India is all about. Unfortunately!!
Excellent read for all Indians who live abroadOctober 8, 2006 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is compiled from Nehru's letters to his teen-age daughter from a British prison. Reading Discovery of India gives a glimpse of the intellectual level of politicians who contetsted British rule in 40's. India owes it's recent "Hi-Tech" growth to Nehru and his vision of sustainable freedom through knowledge and education.
The ONLY real Intro to India Available! A Master piece of work!May 30, 2006 3 out of 4 found this review helpful
There is nothing to say other than 'to understand India'- this is where you need to start. A book like this only comes along once in a lifetime and I'm glad I've benefited from its wonders.
Amazing and UpliftingFebruary 21, 2005 14 out of 15 found this review helpful
Written by Jawaharlal Nehru for his daughter Indira, this book is an introduction to the history of India as well as an insight into Nehru's political vision during the fight for Independance.
The narrative framework is that of Nehru's stay in prison, which gives him time to write and look back on the history of the sub-continent, and on the Nationalist movement. I find this work simply amazing. Nehru doesn't just tackle a few centuries of "Indian" (he actually speaks about a lot more than the present days India) history, he tries to offer a panorama through the ages, from the Indus Civilization (just discovered a decade or so ago at the time) to his entry in history. This history of India is eminently political, as the title proves it, since Nehru invites us to discover India, an entity that did not formaly exist yet. His presentation of the sub-continent's history aims at : doing justice to the incredible richness of the indian past and culture that was overlooked by the British (see MacCauley for instance), creating a history of the subcontinent as a "unified whole" (from Asoka to the Mughals and the British), and finally, summing up the nationalist movement's history.
However biased Nehru's view may be, his presentation of the facts is incredibly compelling and classifies this text as an uplifting testimony of his political views. No matter how much one knows about the more objective history of India, it is impossible to resist partaking in his dream of a unified country. This view might be criticized as imperialistic or just unrealistic since he thought of India as India + Pakistan + Bangladesh, nevertheless when reading this book it is possible to forget everything about history and share a bit of the fiever that animated Indian Nationalists of the Congress.
I find this book extremely informative as much in terms of Nehru's views as in terms of history. However you will need another source on the history to balance Nehru's unifying enthusiasm, for instance India a History by Keay is a very good read as well as an information packed volume (with nice photos). As a final word I'd say that Nehru's take on the history of Islam in India is very intelligent in its attempts to minimize and expalin the gap that was starting to increase dramatically between the Congress and the Muslim League and is useful when trying to understand the origins of the Muslim/Hindu clash (here again, other sources are needed, but it's still worth taking in consideration).
InsightfulJanuary 7, 2005 11 out of 14 found this review helpful
I read Nehru's treatise once when I was in 10th grade and appreciated little of it. I chanced upon the book again recently and decided to hash out the book from the first page to last. I was very impressed with his deep and insightful interpretation of various historical events in the 5 millenia long history of my country, and of his objective portrayal of the same. He was not overtly parochial as I suspected he would be, but was critical of my countrymen and of our culture and their actions when necessary, and lauded their actions when they were justified. Particularly interesting to me were his writings on the social evolution of our caste system, which is said to be a great problem, and is constantly criticized (particularly by the you-know-who's of the western world). However, Nehru showed that, the system in it's ancient and present forms are dogma-induced perversions of it's intended goal, which was to provide checks and balances to racial and class-based divisions that plagued other "more civilized" Hellenic and Saxonic/Nordic societies in Europe (he also pointed out that the caste system enabled ancient Indians to avoid the sick barbarity of the mass slavery of other human beings with minds and thoughts like our own, something which all civilizations other than India and those in the Far East have practiced on a nauseatingly copious scale). Also, I was impressed by his organized portrayal of the British Raj which, by all accounts other than those of the Europeans, was a savage massacre and rape of our land and people to satisfy the Anglo-Saxon bloodlust (while it did have a small number of benefits, it did not justify the claim of "Pax Brittanica"). If I were to paraphrase the British occupation based on his writings, I would have to say that his contention was that, while the British enslaved our people in order to "civilize" us, we wound up civilizing them, as, in the final analysis, they were amenable to reason and dialogue and consequently we were able to sue for our freedon through civil disobedience rather than wage bloody wars for it like other countries like the United States were forced to do.
However, one criticism for this work is that Nehru has often been a tad shaky on his facts. One might argue, of course, that his main intention was not to provide a litany of names and dates, but explanations and interpretations. But one must remember that history is a science as much as it is an art, and the scientific method entails detailed records of all the facts before providing an interpretation of them. Nehru is a little deficient on this. For example, he summarizes the spectacular rise of the Mauryan Empire in just 1 paragraph, without describing the palace intrigues that lead Kautilya to engineer the rather dramatic fall of the Nanda Dynasty and crown Sandracottus/Chandragupta Maurya as the Emperor after driving out the Celucid Greeks. He only touches the interesting bits about the invasions of Demetrius and the Scythians and Huns (though he does mention Mihiragula the Horrible), the mistreatment of the Buddhist monks by the Sunga Kings, and the grand achievements of the Gupta Empire that entail all that is finest about our people even to this day. Also, his portrayal of Muslim rule in India is somewhat biased, and he only describes the bad bits, such as the jizya and the pagan tyranny of Aurangzeb while glossing over the good bits during the reigns Emperors Akbar, Jehangir and all those chaps who tried to build bridges between Hindus and Muslims. He did not write about the reletavily progressive outlook of Indian Muslims (relative to the Persians and Afghans of that time) that laid to the establishment of the Ghulami (Slave) Dynasty in the Sultanate, when Iltutmish, a poor slave, rose in the ranks to become an Emperor, or of our first Empress, Razia al-Din (although the incompetence of the Tughlaq dynasty negated much of that later).
All in all, though, I'm glad I read this book as I know more about my roots than I did before.
