A review by daaan
Incarnations: India in 50 Lives by Sunil Khilnani

2.0

All in all a disappointment. It's a good concept, but executed poorly. The book's main problem is that it attempts to be two things at once, a set of biographies of important historical figures from India and an attempt to unlock some of the current troubles of India. The latter unfortunately distracts from the former and comes across as hopelessly naïve. It almost seems that the writer thinks that the conservative elements in India need simply to be shown examples of how cosmopolitan the past was in order to recognise their foolishness and embrace cosmopolitanism in the present.

Each mini biography was a little formulaic, the descriptions often surface deep and usually crowded out by the frequent and ham fisted references to the present day.