But this reissue of his first book, with a new foreword setting it in the context of the present, will be enthusiastically greeted by all to whom India appeals.ĬOMMENTS:I am always being asked what is a good introduction to India. John Keay has since written more specialized studies of India and elsewhere, including a major new history of the subcontinent. Written in the 1970s, Into India achieved classic status and remained in print for twenty years.

To comprehend and enjoy this experience, there is no better introduction to the tradition and inhibitions of the world's most complex society than Into India. The advertisements call it an experience it changes people in unexpected ways. Vast, ancient and impossibly demanding, it is never just a holiday or an assignment.

India challenges the visitor like no other country. The classic introduction to India reissued with an extensive new foreword. Based on the latest research, this is an indispensible history of a country set to be a definitive influence on the future of world economics, politics and culture.Shipping Note: This item usually arrives at your doorstep in 10-15 days In this brilliant new edition, John Keay continues the narrative of India's history – covering events from partition to the present day and examining the very different fortunes of the three successor states: Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Republic of India. The peoples of the Indian subcontinent, while sharing a common history and culture, are not now, and never have been, a single unitary state the book accommodates Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as other embryonic nation states like the Sikh Punjab, Muslim Kashmir and Assam. Older, richer and more distinctive than almost any other, India's culture furnishes all that the historian could wish for in the way of continuity and diversity. The pattern of inward invasion plus outward migration was established early: from Alexander the Great via the march of Islam and the great Moghuls to the coming of the East India Company and the establishment of the British Raj. India's history begins with a highly advanced urban civilisation in the Indus valley, regressing to a tribal and pastoral nomadism, and then evolving into a uniquely stratified society. Five millennia of the sub-continent's social, economic, political and cultural history are interpreted by one of our finest writers on India and the Far East. The most authoritative and highly regarded single-volume history of India – from ancient time to the modern day.

India by John Keay