Book Review

Articles

• An Expose of Hitler’s Disdain for India | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  26 November 2022, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
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  Hitler and India:
  The untold Story of his Hatred for the Country and Its People
  by Vaibhav Purandare
  HarperCollins Publishers
  207 pages
  Price: Rs 399
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  Adolf Hitler is considered by some as a friend of India because he hosted, even if briefly, Subhas Chandra Bose. This is perhaps one reason why his autobiography Mein Kampf sells well in this country. The reality is nauseatingly different, as journalist-author Vairbhav Purandare unveils in this path (…)

• Bata: A multinational that stole Indian hearts | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  8 October, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW Batanagar: A Personal History of India’s Forgotten Company Town
  by Paramita Sen
  Pan Macmillan India Pages: xxi + 225 It goes to the credit of Bata that it merged so beautifully with Indian ethos that millions for a long time never suspected that it was a multinational from Europe.
  Bata’s quiet birth in India during the British rule, its steady expansion both before and after the country’s independence, and its closeness to the icons of the freedom movement gave the (…)

• Cultural Transformation at the End of Soviet Socialism
  29 July

  BOOK REVIEW The Spirit of Socialism: Culture and Belief at the Soviet Collapse by Joseph Kellner
  Cornell University Press 2025. 242 pp. (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5017-8151-3 Reviewed by Margaret McCool
  Joseph Kellner’s monograph, The Spirit of Socialism: Culture and Belief at the Soviet Collapse, offers a fresh and illuminating perspective on how ordinary Soviet citizens navigated the collapse of the Soviet Union by turning to new cultural phenomena to orient themselves to a rapidly changing (…)

• Book Review: Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism | ACG
  11 December 2020

  Review by Anarchist Communist Group (ACG)
  November 23, 2020
  Darch, Colin. Nestor Makhno and rural anarchism in Ukraine, 1917-1921. Pluto Press.238 pages. £17.99
  I approached this book with some enthusiasm. A new book on the Makhnovist movement using sources previously unreferenced in the English language world. I was sorely disappointed. I should have read Darch’s doctoral thesis on Makhno, where his bias against Makhno and anarchism is immediately apparent. An example of that (…)

• Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Struggle: Inside Stories | Deepti Priya Mehrotra
  8 April 2023, by Deepti Priya Mehrotra

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Deepti Mehrotra __0__
  Japanese Management, Indian Resistance: The Struggles of the Maruti Suzuki Workers By Anjali Deshpande and Nandita Haksar
  Speaking Tiger, Harper Collins https://speakingtigerbooks.com/ 2023 / 366 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9354474446 | ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9354474446 __0__
  Real Stories: Behind the scenes
  Maruti Suzuki workers have been in the public eye, largely due to the death of a manager, on 18 July 2012. Worker-management tension seemed to snowball (…)

• Book Review of Anand Teltumbde, The Caste Con Census | Srinivasulu Karli
  24 January, by Karli Srinivasulu

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  The Caste Con Census
  by Anand Teltumbde
  Navayana Publishing, New Delhi
  2025
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  Reviewed by Srinivasulu Karli
  There is a strong association made out in the existing discourse on caste in which caste data collected through the census is shown to be critical to the pursuance of social justice politics. This, of course, is sharply articulated by Rahul Gandhi with the slogan of ’jitni abadi, utna haq’ (rights proportionate to one

• When Two Ancient Cultures Fall In Love | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  17 August 2024, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Rebels, Traitors, Peacemakers: The Stories of Love and Conflict in Indian-Chinese Relationships
  by Shivaji Das, Yolanda Yu
  Penguin Books Pages: xv + 214 ISBN-10 : 9815127144 ISBN-13 : 978-9815127140
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  What happens when the lives of people from two great civilizations collide?
  It could probably result in an ugly and perhaps bloody encounter if they met on the disputed Sino-Indian frontier. On the contrary, love could (…)

• Review: Switala on A Social Ecology of Capital by Eric Pineault
  25 August 2023

  BOOK REVIEW
  Reviewed by Leon Switala
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  A Social Ecology of Capital by Éric Pineault
  Pluto Press 2023. 176 pp. Paperback ISBN: 9780745343778 eBook ISBN: 9780745343792 __0__
  In a recently held presentation, the Canadian sociologist Éric Pineault stated that he was writing his book to show that on a theoretical and empirical basis ‘there is nothing between degrowth and green growth’. He gives systematic arguments that neither position for a growth perspective seems to be (…)

• Review of Bonnell, Andrew G., Robert Michels, Socialism, and Modernity | Jens-Uwe Guettel
  25 October 2025

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Socialism, and Modernity
  by Andrew G. Bonnell. Robert Michels
  Oxford University Press
  2022
  viii + 282 pp.
  (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-287184-8
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  Sociology and Socialism
  Andrew G. Bonnell

• Savita and Bhim Rao Ambedkar: A Most Unusual Partnership | Deepti Priya Mehrotra
  20 May 2023, by Deepti Priya Mehrotra

  BOOK REVIEW:
  by Deepti Priya Mehrotra
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  Babasaheb: My Life with Dr Ambedkar, by Savita Ambedkar
  translated from the Marathi by Nadeem Khan
  Vintage, Penguin Random House India 2022, p. 337 HB. Rs 599 ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0670096695 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0670096695
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  Accepting and Treasuring One Another
  Savita Ambedkar writes, of her relationship with BR Ambedkar, ‘despite our most unusual circumstances, we accepted each other and treasured each other like something precious.’ (…)