kenzaglen's review against another edition
2.0
The content covered is useful and gives a good basis for understanding key events in India’s history. However, the manner in which these subjects are approached is biased, shallow and unanalytical. I would not recommend this book, but I enjoyed learning more about this fascinating country’s history.
awall14's review against another edition
3.0
I've been wanting to read a history book on India for some time now and when I saw this one at the British Library I thought it would be a good place to start.
This book is good -- it covers an enormous amount of time in a small amount of pages, and for the most part it does it well. I left with a general and overarching understanding of India's complex history, which was ultimately my goal. However, I would have liked was more detail -- or maybe more explanation. My knowledge of India is full of gaps, so when the author mentioned names without giving any background information I was often left confused and looking up info in other sources. The author seemed to be working under the assumption that I knew all the key players, when I assuredly did not. However, I also get that this is a short history and so perhaps this info was left out due to page number constraints.
This book is good -- it covers an enormous amount of time in a small amount of pages, and for the most part it does it well. I left with a general and overarching understanding of India's complex history, which was ultimately my goal. However, I would have liked was more detail -- or maybe more explanation. My knowledge of India is full of gaps, so when the author mentioned names without giving any background information I was often left confused and looking up info in other sources. The author seemed to be working under the assumption that I knew all the key players, when I assuredly did not. However, I also get that this is a short history and so perhaps this info was left out due to page number constraints.
catherine_80's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a basic introduction to history of India - exactly what the title says. Great bonus is a further reading list and nice overview of reasons and challenges in research of the earliest history.
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