Incarnations
A History of India in Fifty Lives
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ISBN10: 0374537216
ISBN13: 9780374537210
Trade Paperback
464 Pages
$18.00
For all of India’s myths, its sea of stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. In Incarnations, Sunil Khilnani fills that space, recapturing the human dimension of how the world’s largest democracy came to be. His trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors, philosophers, film stars, and corporate titans—some famous, some unjustly forgotten—bring feeling, wry humor, and uncommon insight to dilemmas that extend from ancient times to our own. As he journeys across the country and through its past, Khilnani uncovers more than just history. In rocket launches and ayurvedic call centers, in slum temples and Bollywood studios, in California communes and grimy ports, he examines the continued, and often surprising, relevance of the men and women who have made India—and the world—what it is. We encounter the Buddha, “the first human personality”; the ancient Sanskrit linguist who inspires computer programmers today; the wit and guile of India’s Machiavelli; and the medieval poets who mocked rituals and caste. In the twentieth century, Khilnani sets Gandhi and other political icons of the independence era next to actresses, photographers, and entrepreneurs. Incarnations is an ideal introduction to India—and a provocative and sophisticated reinterpretation of its history.
Reviews
Praise for Incarnations
"A whirlwind tour of roughly 2,500 years of Indian history in 50 fast-paced chapters . . . Khilnani's writing is easy to read, yet authoritative. He has spent much of his career studying-India . . . [and] strives to connect the lives and ideas of his subjects to one another and to contemporary India . . . Readers can dip in and out of chapters randomly without being confused, but Incarnations is most rewarding when read from start to finish . . . To my mind the best thing Khilnani has done is to leave the reader wanting more."—Vikas Bajaj, The New York Times Book Review
"An incisive work of popular history . . . undercutting, irreverent, and impish. It attempts to show, through prodigious but lightly worn scholarship, how complex and heterodox the Indian past was, and how it has been, and continues to be, constructed . . . Khilnani offers a fresh, cosmopolitan way of examining the Indian past. Everywhere he looks he sees rivers of influence and thought and ideas."—Karan Mahajan, The New Yorker
"Beautifully written with both scholarship and an enviably light touch, thoughtfully constructed and enviably erudite in its wide-ranging references, and as much at ease discussing higher mathematics and philosophy as politics and art, Incarnations is a major work by one of India’s most impressive minds, and the best possible introduction to both the complexities and the charms of Indian history."—William Dalrymple, The Guardian
"Revelatory, bold and contemplative . . . Scholarly and accessible, lively and deeply serious . . . Is this simply cashing in on the idea behind the blockbuster A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor? Can anyone ever match the erudition and verve of the erstwhile director of the British Museum? Yes and yes. And though this may be heretical, at times Khilnani may even have surpassed him."—The Independent
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BOOK EXCERPTS
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INTRODUCTION
India’s history is a curiously unpeopled place. As usually told, it has dynasties, epochs, religions, and castes—but not many individuals. Beyond a few iconic names, most of...
About the author
Sunil Khilnani
