Ram Madhav

They snatched my playground

Ram Madhav, May 4, 2020

‘They Snatched My Playground’ is a superb personal narrative of a journalist-turned BJP politician from Kashmir Valley Khalid Jehangir about his life in the Valley, it’s terrorism, it’s politics and about the silent majority whose voices are hardly heard or whose stories hardly spoken about. Khalid had a distinct advantage in life in the sense […]

Hindu Dharma and the Culture Wars

Ram Madhav, May 4, 2020

Koenraad Elst never disappoints. This book is no exception. You may agree or disagree with his views and conclusions, but you cannot but read him. Like his other works starting from the 90’s writings on Ayodhya, this book too is rich in content and engrossing in arguments. Koenraad has a style that is both provocative […]

Those Eighteen Days (Volume II)

Ram Madhav, May 4, 2020

I introduced the first volume of Those Eighteen Days earlier. The second volume is also no less significant and rich in content and narrative. Dr Narayanacharya takes us through the part of the War that became Adharmic and drifted into an absolute horror. All rules of the game change and Sri Krishna takes pains to […]

Rise and Kill First

Ram Madhav, May 4, 2020

Read several books on Mossad, the omnipotent Israeli intelligence service. But this one, ‘Rise and Kill First’ by journalist Ronen Bergman is markedly different. It doesn’t romanticise, nor does it portray the agency as superhuman and invincible. It instead presents a very realistic, almost day-to-day account of Mossad and its sister agencies in Israel. It […]

Those Eighteen Days (Volume 1)

Ram Madhav, May 4, 2020

Excellent narration of the details of the 18-day Mahabharata War. Dr. Narayanacharyulu, an eminent Vedic scholar from Karnataka and a Doctorate in Modern English Literature renders it in a gripping conversational style providing details as though it were an eyewitness account. Of particular significance in the first volume are the chapters dealing with Bhishma’s dilemmas […]

The Lessons of Tragedy – Statecraft and World Order

Ram Madhav, May 4, 2020

Interesting book passionately arguing for the US to reacquire ‘tragic sensibility’, meaning, it should be ready to lead the struggles for maintaining a peaceful, liberal and democratic international order irrespective of the costs involved. In his inaugural address John F Kennady made a commitment that his generation of Americans, “tempered by war, disciplined by a […]

Nervous States – Democracy and the Decline of Reason

Ram Madhav, May 4, 2020

Just completed this interesting book. Interesting because in a sophisticated manner it tries to suggest that once-a-holy-idea of democracy is no longer a truthful institution and post-truth influence is what drives global democratic politics today. This book is actually about the nervousness of the liberal intelligentsia over the prospects of democracies that they believed would […]

The 48 laws of Power

Ram Madhav, May 4, 2020

A very interesting book to read. ‘The 48 Laws of Power’. Some of the suggested laws are so much intriguing that one feels that they are against the Indian ethos. But then, these laws are not for common people, they are for leaders who want power. Although written from a Western or European perspective of […]