Wednesday, December 23, 2009

A Tale of Two Revolts: India 1857 and the American Civil War

A former parliamentarian in India, Rajmohan Gandhi currently teaches in the USA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Apart from several biographies, his works include Understanding the Muslim Mind and Revenge and Reconciliation: Understanding South Asian History, both published by Penguin India .

Two wars––the 1857 Revolt in India and the American Civil War—seemingly fought for very different reasons, occurred at opposite ends of the globe in the middle of the nineteenth century. But they were both fought in a world still dominated by Great Britain and the battle cry in both conflicts was freedom.
Rajmohan Gandhi brings the drama of both wars to one stage in A Tale of Two Revolts. He deftly reconstructs events from the point of view of William Howard Russell—an Irishman who was also perhaps the world’s first war correspondent—and uncovers significant connections between the histories of the United States, Britain and India. The result is a tale of two revolts, three countries and one century. Into this fascinating story Rajmohan Gandhi weaves the choices of five extraordinary inhabitants of India—Sayyid Ahmed Khan, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Jotiba Phule, Allan Octavian Hume and Bankimchandra Chatterjee—and of three towering figures of world history—Karl Marx, Leo Tolstoy and Abraham Lincoln—to show the continuities between the nineteenth century and the world we live in today.
Scholarly, insightful and gripping, A Tale of Two Revolts raises new questions about these wars that changed the world.
ISBN: 9780670083558
Published by: Penguin Books India
For more information and discount price, please visit www.indiabookmart.com

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