Book Description
An engrossing narrative of a colonial subject's life contemplating his Imperial masters at the height of colonialism in India; based upon the first eight years of his life-long diary.
Amar Singh, a Rajput nobleman and officer in the Indian Army, kept a diary for forty-four years, from 1898, when he was twenty, until his death in 1942. In it he writes about the Jodhpur court, the Imperial Cadet Corps, and the British Expeditionary Force in China during the Boxer rebellion. A century before hybridity, he constructs a hybrid self, an Edwardian officer cum gentleman and a martial Rajput cum manor lord. With a diary acting as an alter ego and best friend, Amar Singh resists becoming "a coolie for the raj" when he finds the British to be friends as well as racist masters. He writes and reads extensively -"to keep himself amused," he says, and to avoid the boredom of princedom and raj philistinism. Here the authors focus on the first eight years of Amar Singh's diary (1898-1905), offering a rare and intimate glimpse into the British colonialism from the point of view of a loyal subject. Illustrated with fifty photographs and facsimiles from Amar Singh's readings.
Book Description
I didn't set out to write a book. It was 1982, fourteen years after I had last set foot in Vietnam, and thirteen years after I returned to The World. I had a family and a career. I'd never written more than an occasional letter to the editor in my life. My twisted insides had spawned ulcers. The nightmares were more frequent. I needed to get Vietnam out into the open, but I couldn't talk about it. Not after all those years.
Thus begins John Ketwig's powerful memoir of the Vietnam War. Now, over 15 years after its initial publication, Sourcebooks is proud to bring and a hard rain fell back into print in a newly updated edition, with a new introduction by the author and eight pages of never-before-published photographs.
From the country roads of upstate New York to the jungles of Vietnam, and finally to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and a hard rain fell is a gripping and visceral account of one young man's struggle to make sense of his place in a world gone mad.
Customer Reviews:
A contrived bore.......2007-09-26
Don't be misled by this book. It's not the story of a combat veteran reflecting on the horrors of war. Rather, it is the story of a narrowly-focused guy "in the rear with the gear" complaining, endlessly, about the manner in which the war inconvenienced him.
In addition, the book is very poorly written. What Ketwig did was tell the fairly boring and un-compelling story of his military service and supplement it with a witless history of the war and a number of stories that are most likely apocryphal (his basic training stories and Special Forces tales are undoubtably make-believe...I am sure that anyone with some initiative could discover that there was no basic-training "suicide" at the fort he trained at in the manner he described) in order to spice-up an exceedingly dull tale.
Furthermore, there is something obscene about reading a litany of complaints from a rear echelon soldier when one considers that, not far from his boring but relatively safe posting, men were facing mortal danger. This is especially true in the case of Ketwig, who is myopic in the extreme when it comes to what he "suffered."
I will give Ketwig some credit for his unintentionally comical sketch of his unrequited love for a prostitute. That kept me in stitches for a while.
In closing, this is not an attack on Ketwig's politics. Indeed, there are a number of excellent books by anti-war combat veterans (Tim O'Brien for instance). My complaint is that for one to read Ketwig's book to get a feel for the war is akin to learning about sex from a voyeur.
We can ignore reality - or read and learn from history..........2007-09-01
This book is well written, captivating, balanced, and fair. I highly recommend it to anyone of any age with a brain - and the ability to use that brain to think for themselves. You don't have to agree with Ketwig to learn from his experiences - but the lessons are there.
Ketwig has written an outstanding book that contains much more wisdom about life (way beyond just The Nam) than the simple memoir it purports to be. Those who want to feel better about the Vietnam war say disparaging things about Ketwig. But do they say his experiences are misrepresented? No - they just don't like the way he REACTED to those experiences.
I wonder why not? I wouldn't want to sleep with rats and scorpions. I wouldn't like to see US war supplies sold on the black market by opportunistic, self-dealing traitors within our own ranks. I wouldn't like to see children maimed by napalm. I don't understand how other reviewers (supposedly intelligent people) can write such things off as mere "inconveniences." Does patriotism and duty require us to turn off our brains and accept mutely everything that is thrown at us by every situation? We can love our country and the American people and still find ample fault with the irresponsible and myopic fools who run the place.
Ketwig tells us what he felt as a participant in a ridiculous, ill-conceived war. As an American he is entitled to his opinion. As an American who served, he is MORE THAN entitled to his opinion. If more people read "...and a hard rain fell," perhaps we wouldn't find our country repeating the same sad, unnecessary sins of the past -and permitting today's clueless "leaders" to send the poor and the disadvantaged to fight battles for the rich and pampered who populate Congress - and the oil companies and the defense contractors who own them.
I am proud to be a Marine. Yet I am also very comfortable exercising my hard won right to confront and discuss the ugly horrors and realities of war - and not rationalize or bury such things because other Marines and servicemen died. Ketwig does a great job describing the lunacy of military bureaucracy and the stomach-churning frustration it causes. Good for him! Can ANYONE who has EVER served in the armed forces deny that the US military is the epitome of inefficiency and bureaucracy at its very worst? Really, let's be honest - as Ketwig has been.
Reading this book can help prepare the next generation for the uncomfortable but real dichotomies that await them wherever they may go - whether it's the military, Corporate America, or the local union office. All organizations are run by people who generally say one thing to rally the troops and get elected/promoted - and then do the polar opposite to ensure that their personal ambitions are met and their pockets well-lined, whether such actions support their constituents or not. This is a timeless lesson that too many people learn way too late in life - if at all. Ketwig helps the reader shorten that learning curve.
My late father, a decorated veteran of Korea, told me he'd gladly fight in the next war - just as soon as the Congressmen who declared it (or their own children) took the lead and led him into battle. He died knowing that this silliness would NEVER happen. The staff sergeant who ran my platoon, a Medal of Honor winner, confided the same attitude to me. Was he a dope-smoking shirker like some accuse Ketwig of being? No - he was a freakin' bona fide war hero - but a war hero WITH A BRAIN. The dirty work of war, as he and my father clarified for me, is the province of, as the late Leona Helmsley might have said, "the little people."
Ketwig helps us all understand the misery and ultimate futility of war. How can that be a bad thing?
A sad and disturbing book - most of it true?.......2007-08-26
I don't have any way to know with certainty how much of the content of this book is a true and realistic recounting of what actually happened to the author and how much may have been exaggeration or fabrication or stories borrowed from others or drug induced distortion. It may all be 100% accurate and straightforward. But, there have been many documented cases of Vietnam stories that were far from accurate and it wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that this is another one. Maybe I'm just an unreasonable skeptic, but an awful lot of it just didn't seem credible.
In any event, if it's all true or not, it's a sad and disturbing story of a draftee who must have had many bad experiences. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone other than possibly someone looking for shock value.
Ketwig got it made........2007-06-06
Sorry that Ketwig has to serve in Vietnam but he got it made. He was a mechanic, never faced direct combat. Then he re-enlisted to get out of Vietnam. Stationed in Thailand and only once awhile he has to risk his neck to fly in Laos to repair artillery pieces. He even have the time to smoke lots of marijuana, went to R&R and had very good time with a prostitute. He had it so good that he should rename the book to something like "when rainbow appears...". He needs to stop smoking marijuana, that will stop the depression.
If you want good Vietnam story, read James Webb's Fields of Fire. Its a novel but its raw and very real.
"I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children...".......2006-04-22
...AND A HARD RAIN FELL, John Ketwig's memoir of his time in Southeast Asia is a crucial book to read for an understanding of the fog of war and the spiritual wounds all veterans face. ...AND A HARD RAIN FELL takes us inside Ketwig's experience with a clarity amazing for a memoir. This book is even more critical today, as Iraq and Afghanistan blaze across our national consciousness.
Unlike Ron Kovic (BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY) John Ketwig did not start out as a flag-wrapped patriot convinced of the rightness of stopping the Red Menace at any cost. In the first third of the book, Ketwig speaks frankly of his thoughts of draft avoidance and Canada. He is squarely antiwar from the first word. A few reviewers have derided Ketwig for "whining" about "everyday inconveniences" and for having a generally jaundiced view of the military and "his patriotic duty", but other authors and Vietnam Vets have documented well the miasma of depersonalization that characterized the U.S. military in the middle 1960s. Eighteen year old boys like Ketwig were not volunteer soldiers, they were essentially draftees or forced enlistees, ripped from the familiar and the comfortable to be dropped into a thoroughly alien and brutish environment designed to turn them into killing machines in a matter of weeks. The trauma of such a transformation is hard to understand unless one has lived through it.Therefore, Ketwig's complaints about glassless windows in the winter, sheetless bunks (both ostensibly to prevent suicides), and regimentation by insult seem self-indulgent except to one who has felt (and intrinsically resisted) the same internal twist and torque imposed by an outside force.
From the moment of Ketwig's arrival in Vietnam he recognizes (if he cannot yet admit) the futility of the American mission. Transported from Ton Son Nhut Airbase (under rocket fire) in a bus with screened windows (to keep out thrown trash and grenades), and sent to Long Binh to guard an ammo dump (frequently booby trapped by guerrillas), there seems no spot in Vietnam where order reigns or where the American presence has imposed any sort of real peace.
Ketwig's transfer "upcountry" to Pleiku is similarly fraught with trauma: He volunteers for a convoy to embattled Dak To, and is nearly killed by a land mine. His compound is shelled by South Vietnamese turncoats. He finds himself in a bunker with other terrified teenagers wondering just what the hell is happening as the Tet Offensive explodes all around him. Unspeakable filth, rats, scorpions, poisonous snakes, booby traps, friendly fire, Vietcong infiltrators, the curses of the local people, and bizarre accidents are a daily ration which callouses him and his fellow soldiers. Dead men, crushed, broken, bleeding and napalmed bodies sear their eyes. Vietnam is a huckster's bazaar, selling death and trinkets to all bidders.
Thoughtful, Ketwig wonders why. His answer, to provide seed and farm implements to the peasantry seems like a more sane and ultimately successful way to combat Communism, but as a lowly Pfc his opinion is neither required nor respected. Ketwig is required only to repair and remove the gore from hosts of battle-damaged vehicles. A reflective reader has to stand with Ketwig, and question authority.
After a year of soul-scarring experiences and unsure of his place in The World, he applies for a transfer to Thailand, where he discovers and embraces a version of the Buddhist culture he had sought to find in Vietnam. The year in Thailand is therapeutic (both for Ketwig and the reader, who is as overwhelmed as the author by this point), but it also allows him to shut his demons away largely without confronting them.
Despite his love affair with Thailand, The World beckons, and Ketwig goes home to suffer the dislocation common to many Vietnam Vets. In time he makes a life, but his demons never rest. At least until he begins to tap this story out painfully, page by page, hunt and peck.
...AND A HARD RAIN FELL is as much an exorcism as it is a story of one man's war. It may not be every man's war; but it is a valuable recollection of what war does to human beings. There are others, more Mom-And-Apple-Pie, more heroic, and even more jingoistic. This is one, a well-written one, that cannot be ignored.
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- Flying Blind
- Fascinating!
- Highly recommended reading for aviation history enthusiasts.
- Absolutely Top-Drawer, and Richer for the Re-Reading!
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Flying Blind: A Memoir of Biplane Flying over Waziristan in the Last Days of British Rule in India
Geoffrey Morley-Mower
Manufacturer: Yucca Tree Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1881325407 |
Book Description
The author joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot in 1937, an ominous date in history--only two years before the outbreak of World War II. He was nineteen years old and handicapped by astigmatism. After arrogantly fooling the medical examiners, he bluffed his way through flight training, encountering a series of flight training adventures which could have ended his career.
His luck continued when he was sent to Imperial India during an insurrection led by the infamous Faqir of Ipi. There he flew the Westland Wapiti, an open cockpit biplane of World War I vintage, and lodged in a battlemented mud and brick fort where the aeroplanes were pushed inside the walls at night to shield them from sniping Wazirs.
From the naivety, enthusiasm, and confusion of youth, Morley-Mower develops into a mature man who finds love, adventures, and himself while serving his country.
His fascinating account of army and air operations over the wild and lawless terrain of the Afghan border is filled with detail, immediacy and human interest. It is supported by diary entries, giving dates and descriptions of individuals who played prominent roles in the campaigns. It, therefore, provides a unique contribution to the military and political history of the period; a history almost entirely ignored by scholars because of the advent of a world war.
FLYING BLIND is a glimpse into a way of life during the last days of the British Empire in India, an era which ended after World War II. It deals with a period in the author's career before MESSERSCHMITT ROULETTE: The Western Desert, 1941-42, in which he described his adventures as a Hawker Hurricane pilot during General Erwin Rommel's campaigns in Libya and Egypt.
When the war ended, his status as a pilot was revoked because of his eyesight but, taking advantage of a little used privilege, he appealed to King George VI to reinstate his flying career. He won.
Customer Reviews:
Flying Blind.......2005-05-24
As a pilot, I could identify/sympathize with Mr. Morley-Mower's flight training. A down to earth book that tells it like it was. This is a tale of an unasuming hero. A must follow on is his first book, Messerschmitt Roulette. Thank you Geoffrey.
Fascinating!.......2003-07-21
Great heroic story! Fascinating records of army and air operations over the treacherous terrain of the Afghan border. Shortly after the war, a pilot fights to keep his flying carrer with his appeals to King George VI! Does he win his? I'll save that for you!
Highly recommended reading for aviation history enthusiasts........2000-09-05
This account of army and air operations over the Afghan border in the last days of British rule in India will intrigue a wide audience, from those interested in books on early plane and biplane flight to readers of military accounts. The author joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot in 1937, two years before World War II: his experiences in an antique plane provides a fine account of his adventures and close encounters.
Absolutely Top-Drawer, and Richer for the Re-Reading!.......2000-07-14
I could not put this book down. What I found remarkable about FLYING BLIND is that Geoffrey Morley-Mower has already written one of the most engaging and insightful memoirs of any veteran of the Second World War, MESSERSCHMITT ROULETTE. Yet FLYING BLIND is, in many ways, an even more satisfying book. Here, in the second volume of his memoirs, we meet the man and the pilot on the cusp of living his dream: flying for the RAF on the distant edge of the British Raj. Morley-Mower's self-deprecatory wit, his elegant and understated prose, and his gift for narrative sustain FLYING BLIND with a verve rarely found in fiction, much less in military biographies. The men who fought the good fight in the Second World War are fading from us, but this book reminds us of their honor, valor, and above all, their humanity, in ways that few other books have. Geoffrey Morley-Mower's second volume of his memoirs, like the first, is reminiscent of William Manchester's outstanding remembrance of serving in the U.S. Marine infantry in the Second World War, GOODBYE DARKNESS. Like Manchester, Morley-Mower has no room for bombast and plenty of room for reflective, highly-charged prose. FLYING BLIND is a must-read for anyone interested in great writing. For military scholars, it is a jewel, as so few of the iron-backboned RAF heroes are still alive. Thank God Geoffrey Morley-Mower wrote this book, bless him. And, as Hemingway once said, good books never suffer in the re-reading. FLYING BLIND is richer in the re-reading. Enjoy.
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- A good soldier, like Her Himler
- Pro-Pakistan Fascist Nonsense
- 1971-Myths and Facts
- Make no mistake, General Tikka Khan was a patriot.
- Evil Man, Evil Army, Evil Country
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The Betrayal of East Pakistan
A. A. K. Niazi
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0195777271 |
Book Description
Lieutenant-General A. A. K. Niazi of the Eastern Command was the man whose fate it was to direct the operation that resulted in the dismemberment of Pakistan. Many books have been written about that unforgettable year in Pakistan's history, 1971, and the terrible events that it spawned.
Niazi's own account of events provides an insider's view of that fateful time and fills a huge gap in the recorded history of the period.
Customer Reviews:
A good soldier, like Her Himler.......2004-04-09
This book is merely a propagation of lies. This man's self righteous arrogance has blinded him from his own intergrity. Everyone is to blame but himself, in this book. It is a sad reality that this once brave and intelligent soldier, a respectable military mind which won him medals in the 40's and 50's, will historically only be remembered as the " Butcher of Bangladesh". He has done Pakistan's army honour no favours in 1971. He should have faced a war tribunal but escaped through natural death. How he encouraged his 92,000 troops to rape 400,000 Muslim and Hindu women in Bangladesh so that the population was intimidated is a crime of such magnitude, comparable only to (...). His denial of mass raping and genocide figures that the world news agencies produced proves him astonishingly dishonest. His cowardly army slaughtered 2.5 million unarmed civilians, and caused the biggest mass raping of women in human history, surpassing Nanking 1937. He induced humanity such incredible suffering, Allah will probably never release this evil man from the eternal torment of Hellfire. His role in Genocide is like Her Himler's, and as he was himself a rapist, his troops followed his example. There are still thousand's of rape victims in Psychiatric hospitals in Bangladesh from 1971, they are still suffering 33 years later. He along with many other Pakistani politicians (...) in 1971 are amongst the greatest war criminals in history. He may have escaped Justice in this life, he will not in the next.May this legendary rapist and his butchering accomplices rot in the 7th level of hell for eternity. This book is an inaccurate fictitious propagation of lies. He is among history's top ten evil men count. A disgrace to Pakistani nation.
Pro-Pakistan Fascist Nonsense.......2003-10-13
I trust that all fair-minded readers will find this waste of paper and ink to be absurd.
I'll relate the following observations:
1) 3 million dead is most likely an inflated claim. However, the number of civilians killed (before the Indian army entered East Pakistan, for the record, not after) was in the hundreds of thousands by the account of any impartial observer (and there were many - for further information read editions of any American or other western newspapers from that time, the U.S. Library of Congress records, etc.) Is that something to be proud of?
2) The notion that Bengalis did not aspire to independence during the British is a lie - many Bengali intellectuals advocated freedom. Even if it were true, and it is not, by the same logic Pakistan should be part of India since no serious progress toward freedom was made prior to World War II.
1971 was a great example of how the Islamic fundamentalist mentality is a destructive force in the world. The continued denial of this mass murder by patriotic but braindead madrassah-educated Pakistani OBL-wannabes shows that this menace is a threat to all civilized peoples today.
1971-Myths and Facts.......2002-12-07
there are a lot of myths associated with the creation of bangladesh.First of all lets take genocide and "holocaust" of bengalis by the pakistan army.its claimed that three million bengalis were killed.Let me ask a simple question. If Hitler's Nazi army of more than two million soldiers killed six million jews in six years(1939-45) aided with death camps,gas chambers,giant incinerators, How is it possible that Pakistan's 90,000(in fact less than that) soldiers could so efficiently kill three million bengalis(half that of jews), within such short timespan of nine months (march-december 1971)?????? without the aid of auschwitz,sobibor, etc. and also so efficiently erasing all the evidence of this great crime. So, i think it must be clear to the reader that no such "bangladesh holocaust" ever took place.This is the reason that the world doesnt take this groundless claim seriously.Only few Indian and Bangladeshi authors keep raising hue and cry ,but in their hearts they know that they are just "the boys that cried wolf".Secondly, india's prime minister Morar Jee Desai himself accepted that the so called MuktiBahini the bangladesh independence army, had indian commandos making a large proportion of this army,who committed many war crimes,which wont ever be brought to the light,because of creation of bangladesh.Bangladesh was a part of pakistan,and it gained independence only by Indian aid.had india not committed naked aggression on east pakistan on 22nd november 1971, there would have been no bangladesh.Thirdly, lets ask whether the bengalis were really being exploited by west pakistan? Before 1947,there was no bengali muslim in Indian Civil service and the indian army.It was the creation of Pakistan that ended the centuries of exploiting of bengali muslims by hindus and british.Before 1947,bengalis never complained of being considered so inferior that the british did not see them worthy of civil service or army. A great deal of economic development occured in east pakistan after 1947.And more than anything, the bengali muslims were given a chance to live as a respected nation,independent from the Hindu elite's exploits. Bengali language was taken as the national language of pakistan.east pakistanis were given equal rights to prosper.Second Capital buildings in dhaka are evidence,built in AyubKhan's regime.every attempt was made to keep parity of east and west pakistan.But in reward of every concession,bengalis demanded more.So much investment was done by west pakistanis industrialists in east pakistan.I ask , east bengal was poor in the british raj days also,but no one blamed anyone.and just few years after independence of 1947,west pakistan was being blamed for all the ills of east pakistan.All pakistanis were brothers and are and will remain brothers.India will always be the mutual enemy of muslims,whether bengali or pakistani.After 1972,how india exploited east pakistan as a colony must be enough to reveal the intentions of the hindu state.All i mean to say is that both east and west pakistan were at fault and thus india took advantage and two brothers broke away. It was the result of two opportunistic politicians, mujeeb and bhutto & a power hungry drunk general Yahya. This is the reason that nature took revenge,which is evident from the way bhutto and mujeeb died.
Make no mistake, General Tikka Khan was a patriot........2002-04-16
In this book, General Niazi attempts to hide the fact that it was his cowardice that cost the secession of East Pakistan. Niazi is the same soldier who saluted the Indian Army Chief while surrendering in the former East Pakistan.He should have fought and died like a true soldier, not given up against a bitter enemy.
While many perceive Tikka Khan's tactics as harsh, they must remember that realistically, this was the only option Pakistan had to maintain its territorial integrity.This was all a political issue, and once the politicians failed to resolve it, they sent the military in to do the job.When General Tikka Khan was sent to East Pakistan, things were totally out of hand,and some drastic steps had to be taken.If you look at the orders given to Tikka by the General Headquarters in West Pakistan, they clearly stated that he must try to do everything in his power to bring order back to East Pakistan.
The fact is that General Tikka and the Pakistan Army were left with no choice but to take harsh actions against the anti-Pakistan elements (just like any country would), who in this case were the Mukti Bahini terrorists and their Indian supporters. Make no mistake, India supported the Mukti Bahini terrorists by providing arms to them and training them and also helping them infiltrate into East Pakistani territory.In this effort, the USSR also helped India while the U.S. just watched as one of its allies was cut in half by the the Soviets.Read Richard Nixon's memoirs and he clearly asks whether the U.S. policy should have been different and one that would have supported Pakistan in this war because the USSR was anti-Pakistan because of Pakistan's close relationship with the U.S.
It is interesting that Niazi blames Tikka for the loss of East Pakistan and calls him incompetent (which is a ridiculous claim because of Tikka's successes in the 1965 Indo-Pak conflict, especially in the region of Rann of Kutch and the brilliantly orchestrated defense of the Pakistani city of Sialkot. Tikka was greatly respected by his juniors and colleagues)
This book is biased, and Niazi attempts to divert attention from his own mistakes and blunders.General Tikka was clearly a patriot who sacrificed a great deal for Pakistan,a nd endangered his life on many occasions for the sake of his motherland.He was a distinguished soldier of the Pakistan Army, and although civilians were killed in East Pakistan, this was not the intention of General Tikka. Tikka never ordered the rape or massacre of anyone, although some individual soldiers of the Pakistan army committed crimes against humanity, and many of them were later court martialled and punished.The figureof 3 million dead people is a farce,the death count was far lower than this, and many people who died in a devastating 1970 hurricane were also included as casualties of war to inflate the figure.
Make no mistake, this was a conspiracy against Pakistan, to destroy Pakistan, and to kill its people.The people of Pakistan were divided, and the enemy succeeded in sowing the seeds of hatred amongst them.Those who were once brothers turned against each other and massacred each other.The enemy won because the people of Pakistan were divided. Let this be a lesson for future generations of Pakistanis.Let this not happen again.
Evil Man, Evil Army, Evil Country.......2002-01-22
The basic plot theme: Everything was everyone elses fault. 3 million Bangladeshis were not murdered, 27,000 women were not raped. The Pakistanis kept on winning but somehow (unexplained) lost to the Indians in the end. The General was always right, everyone else was wrong. This self-delusional, lying, racist drivel shows what is wrong with Pakistan -- a nation created (mainly by Bangladeshis as it happens, as they provided the majority of the votes for the new country) supposedly in the name of Islam, but which has murdered more Muslims than India, Israel, Serbia, Croatia and indeed pretty much any other nation you can think of apart from Iraq or Russia -- and those countries took years to do what Pakistan did in months. This is an army that has killed or oppressed more of its own people than any other. The reviews on this page are also instructive; the Pakistani names are unashamed revisionist anti-Bangladeshi bigots who refuse to learn anything from their own past for their own national good. Explains why their country is still a Punjab dominated, poor, backward, repressive, military dictatorship today. Also explains how they could support the Taleban with no problems and have regular riots, independance movements in Sind and Baluchistan, political and social violence, a drug problem, illiteracy, massive debt, few international friends, corruption and God knows what else. A nation cannot progress until it learns from its mistakes and Pakistan refuses to learn from its biggest one.
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Civilians in Uniform: A Memoir 1937-1945
Richard Terrell
Manufacturer: I. B. Tauris
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1860642365 |
Book Description
The period of World War II now slips beyond the recall of most readers today. Yet that fact largely explains the mysterious appeal of personal memoirs of the epoch. Richard Terrell's vivid recollections retrieve something otherwise lost forever. In his story he takes us into military camps in beautiful parts of Britain, reminds us of the love songs and the bitter cold outside and the absurdities of men in the uniforms of soldiers, clerks and shop assistants at heart. In troopships he takes us to West Africa, on marches into the Nigerian bush, and then to sea in the South Atlantic, across the Indian Ocean to Bombay and beyond to the Bay of Bengal, to the jungle-clad hills of western Burma. The story throughout is replete with touching, often amusing incidents about the men and women of many kinds and many lands. In addition, in a special postscript, he discusses the great constitutional events of 1946-7 in the Indian sub-continent. This is a book to be treasured.
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South Asia: A Historical Narrative
Mohammed Yunus , and
Aradhana Parmar
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0195797116 |
Book Description
This book highlights, for the first time in South Asian historiography, the physical conditions and geological events that created this subcontinent 50 million years ago. Those events led to the emergence of one of the first human civilizations in the Indus valley. It also explains why, for five thousend years, the South Asians did not invade other lands but were constantly invaded themselves. All of them settled down and made the subcontinent their home except Britain and its merchants who came by sea, remained off shore, siphoned its wealth, and left it in tatters when they departed. The impact of the rise of European sea power on the subcontinent has been highlighted, and, for the first time, it has been strategically explained why the sea-faring colonial powers wanted to establish strong forts on the Afro-Asian coasts and how great empires of India and China remained unable to dismantle those forts that eventually led to the crumbling of those empires. This book reflects two different historical narratives - Hindu and Muslim - and offers a balanced and objective view of one of the longest uninterrupted histories of the world by carefully considering the historical circumstances that created not only differences but also similarities in the experiences of the people of South Asia. Drawing on new evidence and research, it provides a fresh perspective on the politics of historical narrative.
Books:
- Rita Hayworth: A Photographic Retrospective
- Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together
- Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction
- Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World
- Speaking of Slavery: Color, Ethnicity, and Human Bondage in Italy (Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past)
- Suicide Bombers: Allah's New Martyrs
- Sunne in Splendour
- The Archaeology of Weapons: Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry
- The Atlas of Climate Change: Mapping the World's Greatest Challenge
- The Boleyn Inheritance
Books Index
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