Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Arcade Publishing; 1st edition (August 15, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1559703849
ISBN-13: 978-1559703840
One of the best in a generation of Indian authors shows how the challenges facing the world’s largest and most diverse democracy will also affect America and the West in the 21st century—now available in paperback, with a new preface by the author.
At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, a new nation was born. It has 17 major languages and 22,000 distinct dialects. It has over a billion individuals of every ethnic extraction known to humanity. It has a population that is 32 percent illiterate, but also one of the world’s largest pools of trained scientists and engineers. Its ageless civilization is the birthplace of four major religions, a dozen different traditions of classical dance, and three hundred ways of cooking a potato.
Shashi Tharoor’s India is a fascinating portrait of one of the world’s most interesting countries — its politics, its mentality, and its cultural riches. But it is also an eloquent argument for the importance of India to the future of America and the industrialized world. With the energy and erudition that distinguished his prize-winning novels, Shashi Tharoor points out that Indians account for a sixth of the world’s population and their choices will resonate throughout the globe. He deals with this vast theme in a work of remarkable depth and startling originality, combining elements of political scholarship, personal reflection, memoir, fiction, and polemic, all illuminated in vivid and compelling prose.