HT Picks; New Reads

This week’s list of good reads includes a book on how the People’s Republic of China was transformed from a backwater economy in the 1970s to the world superpower it is today, one that narrates the lesser known last books of the Mahabharata that focus on the aftermath of the war, and a volume in which scientists from the Nature Conservation Foundation describe how they grapple with conservation in India

The Rise of a Superpower

A book on how China was transformed into the world superpower it is today, another that narrates the last books of the Mahabharata, and a volume in which Nature Conservation Foundation scientists talk about their remarkable work. (HT Team)

416pp, ₹699; Bloomsbury (how the People’s Republic of China was transformed from a backwater economy in the 1970s into the world superpower of today)

In China After Mao, award-winning historian Frank Dikötter explores how the People’s Republic of China was transformed from a backwater economy in the 1970s into the world superpower of today. His account is the first to be based on hundreds of previously unseen archival documents, from the secret minutes of top party meetings to confidential bank reports. Unfolding with great narrative sweep, this riveting, richly detailed chronicle recasts our understanding of an era that both the regime and foreign admirers celebrate as an economic miracle.

In charting four decades of so-called “Reform and Opening Up” and China’s emergence as a world power, Dikötter tells a fascinating tale of contradictions and illusions, of shadow banking, anti-corruption drives and extreme state wealth standing alongside everyday poverty. He examines China’s approach to the 2008 financial crash, the country’s increasing hostility towards perceived Western interference and its development into a thoroughly entrenched dictatorship – one equipped with a sprawling security apparatus and the most sophisticated surveillance system in the world. Ultimately, the book concludes, the communist party’s goal was never to join the democratic sphere, but to resist it – and then defeat it.*

The Last Books of The Mahabharata

240pp, ₹499; Speaking Tiger (narrate the legendary battle between two branches of the Kuru clan of North India, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, and its aftermath.)

Composed sometime between 300 BCE and 300 CE, the Mahabharata’s 75,000 verses narrate the legendary battle between two branches of the Kuru clan of North India, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, and its aftermath. Storytellers in all of South Asia and far beyond have entertained and instructed through this greatest of epics for generations past. But, as the translator says in her introduction, they have generally “underra[ted] the high emotion, mythological inventiveness, metaphysical complexities, and conflicted characters that animate the last books [which]...tell a unified and self-bounded story of their own”.

Bringing to bear her many years of study of the Mahabharata, Wendy Doniger renders the complex narrative in exceedingly lucid prose. The absorbing story and her masterful translation will appeal to the general reader and the scholar alike.*

25 years of conservation in India

400pp, ₹599; HarperCollins (the scientists and researchers of the Nature Conservation Foundation describe how they grappled with conservation in India.)

Have you wondered what it is like to follow hornbills in a dense rainforest? Or felt the pain of a mountain shepherd losing his sheep to a leopard? Or how it feels when a child discovers birdwatching is more exciting than being glued to a screen? The world of nature conservation is full of adventure, but it is also hard, fraught with challenges and setbacks, made worthwhile by the privilege of studying at the feet of living things.

In this book, the scientists and researchers of the Nature Conservation Foundation describe how they grappled with conservation in India. Since 1996, they have wandered mountains, coral reefs, and forests to describe, document, protect and restore species and ecosystems. They have studied the lives of primates, snow leopards, hornbills, elephants, dugongs, fish, trees and other creatures. With local communities, they have experienced the sometimes-harsh reality of living with the wild side of nature. And they have strived to bring children and citizens to celebrate and learn about it.

Each reflective and deeply personal narrative in this book goes behind the science to describe the challenges of conservation. At the Feet of Living Things will appeal to students, researchers, conservation practitioners, wildlife managers, nature enthusiasts and interested citizens.*

*All copy from book flap.