Book Review #103: Europe: Chained By History: What forces can break the chain? By Larry J. Hilton

Title: Europe: Chained By History: What forces can break the chain?

Author: Larry J. Hilton

Publishers: Newport Publishing

Genre: History/Non-Fiction

Pages: 344 (Paperback)

Source: Advanced review copy from Cadence Group

Having read many books on the history and especially on the European history, this book makes a unique read. It stands as a class apart. It doesn’t goad us with the facts and figures in a detailed manner which is painstaking to remember everything. This book will present its readers a riveting and vivid account of the history from a different perspective. The book encompasses the humane angle of the history from the medieval times till modern days. 

How does each phase of the history affect the common human beings like you and me? This very essence was captured in a brilliant way.

The book picks up really good with a note from the author in the preface of what led him to write this book. His love towards the history is evident in each chapter and the reference he quotes from different backgrounds adds a feel good factor while reading. In almost all chapters, the readers can see the references being made to the epic series of 11 volumes of western history "The Story of Civilization" by Will and Ariel Durant. We can also witness the author’s adoration towards the famous French poet, philosopher and playwright Voltaire and endorses his beliefs on the freedom of expression and social justice.

The central theme of the book is the capital of Austria, the Vienna. Starting from its historical background of how the present day Vienna got its name from the historical name of Vindobona which means “Fair Village or White Settlement” that originated from the historical beliefs from the Roman settlement of Celtic extraction. From there, the author takes us on a ride through the many kings and dynasties that ruled the Austria, especially the Habsburg dynasty and the king and queens that ruled for hundreds of years. The interesting account was of Maria Theresa, the only female ruler of the Habsburg dynasty, followed by her son Joseph II that ruled for just 10 years, but yet, made enough progress to abolish many things and bringing in new reforms that helped every sect of the society, especially the Jewish origins.

The more we dwell into the book, the more interesting it becomes. The chapters on the birth and rise of Adolf Hitler are a fascinating read. How Adolf does have his surname “Hitler” is an interesting tale. Adolf’s father, Alois Hitler was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber; the Baptismal register didn’t show the name of the father, though Marina Anna knew who Alois’s father was. From there, Alois used his mother’s name as his surname. By late 1842, Maria Anna married Johann Georg Hiedler. Alois was infact brought up in the family of Hiedler’s brother Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. In 1876, Alois was legitimized and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Heidler as Alois’s father has mistakenly changed his name to Georg Hitler. This was, Alios assumed the surname as “Hitler”. The chain followed ever after in the family, and thus we see Adolf Hitler. “Hitler” means the one who lives in a Hut.

Adolf Hitler’s regime was one of the brutal and inhumane phases of the modern Austrian history as recorded in this book. With a nil or deteriorating political backbone of the Austria and a growing strength of Adolf Hitler has left no option for the Austrians but to yield before Hitler. This came at the cost of no bullets. Hitler proudly records this event as “conquered without firing a single shot”. It is quite interesting to note that, Adolf Hitler’s childhood comprises of his friendship with Jews, his mother was treated till death by a Jewish doctor, and his stay in Vienna during his college days had made him to have many Jewish acquaintances and so on. His sudden change of behavior of hatred towards Jews has a long history of his reading habits and understanding the political world.

The book has many such fascinating and interesting tales from the history. One such example is the family of Klaar’s. Their tale of misery has no bounds. Also, the diary of a war widow Anna Eisenmenger will provide a vivid detail of the war and post war life, describing the events and the misery they had to endure. One should read these tales from the book to understand the complete picture of a common family during those times.

Overall, I feel this is an interesting book with the facts and figures covered from a different perspective. It is an easy read. The language used is simple and effective. It holds the readers till the end and it certainly becomes unstoppable. Larry J. Hilton has done a tremendous research to pen this book. I strongly recommend this book to be read by all.

My Rating:

5/5

Note: This book was given to me by “The Cadence Group” in exchange for an unbiased review.

Book Review #88: Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Life, Their Fraud By Arun Shourie

Title: Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Life, Their Fraud
Author: Arun Shourie
Publishers:HarperCollins Publishers India
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 270 (eBook edition)
Source: Personal Copy

Does the modern liberals hate Hindus and demean our scriptures right from the Vedas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Upanishads and Hindu philosophy ? Then, who is to blame? Does all these secular changes were new to India? Does belittling Hinduism is the new phenomenon? From where does these set of people even come from? Those very answers lies in this exceptionally written book.

Arun Shourie the author turned politician has penned this epic rebuttal to those intellectual terrorists and demagogues and ripped apart their lies that they peddled for nearly 4 decades. Communism is not new in India, in fact, the communists supporters are prospering in India since its inception till today. But they do it openly. But, how about those so called intellectuals and historians who subvert the very history of India to please their masters and doing more damage to the national prosperity? Arun Shourie has addressed the very same issue in this book titled Eminent Historians.

The first few pages of the book doesn't seems quite interesting as there only figures of the money that these eminent historians took to complete their writing projects at the expense of tax payers. Shourie has tabulated all those details of each individual who are making a moolah by doing nothing. The scores of these historians are in the likes of Irfan habib, R.S Sharma, Bipan Chandra, Lal, Panikkar, Romila Thapar, Anand, and so on. These people were adorning the highest chairs of Universities in this country and are helping to nurture their proteges by imbibing the same communist ideologies in their pupils. These historians have took all the advantage of government to write something real, but all they did was to subvert the very basic foundations of this country.

As the book progresses further, we get to see from the example of West Bengal government's action plan of editing the history text books for school children. As per accounts exposed by Shourie, all those crimes and robberies committed by the Islamic invaders was deleted from the books at the orders of their existing government at that time. Instead, kids were taught how intolerant that the Hindus and Hindu religion is. There is not an iota of doubt that, the communist champions were the brain behind these.

This is just an example from the book. You get to read many such cringe worthy details of these communist authors that went ahead and tried to paint a bad image of Hindustan. Shourie emphasizes the fact that, even Russian authors are fair enough in their writings than these communist eminent historians of India. These communist historians are peddling lies after lies and worshiping the likes of Mao, Stalin, Engels, etc.. These are gods and flag bearers of social justice.

Shourie further exposes the lies of those authors who claims that the Hinduism is a new 19th century British created movement and there was no real Hindu religion at all. These authors goes a step ahead to celebrate Jainism and Buddhism. They also mention that, Hinduism has targeted the Buddhists and Jains in India that resulted in the decline of these religion in India. But, they forgot to mention the attacks perpetrated by the Islamic invaders who pillaged the country and ransacked their monasteries. Author has exhumed the truth by giving the right references for each of their lies and exposed them brilliantly. 

I guess, more Indians should read this book to understand why there is liberal movement in today's India? Why there is an uproar of modern secularism? Why the universities like JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) is breeding anti-nationals in their campuses? Why there are no real historians remained in this country that could teach the real Indian history to its people? And, finally, why this new generation of students who remain closed to the arguments and research, but, believe in the books offered by our governments as curriculum?

The book overall exhumes the truth in the subtle way. There are few section of people who argue that, Arun Shourie has written this book to settle personal scores and animosities with these authors. But, it is not. Try being rational and open up to the arguments presented by the author. It is really an important book for everyone. A collectors gem. Highly recommended.

My Rating:
5/5

Book Review #86: Tinderbox: The past and future of Pakistan By M.J. Akbar

Title: Tinderbox: The past and future of Pakistan

Author: M.J. Akbar

Publishers: Harper Collins

Pages: 330+ (Paperbound)

Genre: Non-Fiction/History/Politics

Source: Personal Copy

As a history aficionado, I am always fascinated by the history. Especially interested to learn more about India and Pakistan. The Tinderbox by renowned journalist, columnist and writer M.J. Akbar provides us a fascinating and a riveting account of how the formation of Pakistan happened and what were the reasons behind it. The book is well researched and documented.

The narration of the book is in chronological order starting with the Islamic invaders into India right from the Sultanates, Ottomans, Turks, Moghuls, etc… Each invader has a specific purpose in their minds, that is, conversion and pillaging the country to the maximum. Author has narrated a brilliant picture of all these things in the most simplistic manner. The book never seems to be a hard read, rather, one can enjoy each chapter and reminisce the historical aspects.

Pakistan as a country, which was created out of religious demands by the handful of influential people who worked mainly to satiate their ego. Starting with Maudadi in the post Mogul era and with the advent of Mohammed Ali Jinnah during the British era had just one agenda and propagated the same. Indian Muslims are not safe in the Hindu India. They have purposefully spread this message time and again and lured the masses into believing that Islam is in danger in India.

The book mainly divided into three different levels. First, the Muslims of India during the time of Islamic invaders time in the likes of Turks, Afghans, Moguls, and Sultanates etc... Secondly, the Muslims of India during the British tenure and finally the Muslims as what we see today, in Pakistan. The creation of Pakistan on the basis of religion itself is a major setback for Pakistan. The Qaid-e-azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah has envisaged something before the partition and aspired to turn Pakistan into something similar to Turkey (a modern secular Islamic country) was failed at large. From the book, we can make sure that, the intervention posed by the mullahs and other religion fundamentalists in the administration of Pakistan government resulted in not achieving what Jinnah aspired off.

The Indian Muslims before the partition was constantly brainwashed by the leaders like Jinnah and Maudadi with their constant public stunts of Muslims are not safe in India. Jinnah even went a step ahead and used Gandhi’s metaphor of “Rama Rajya” into something unbelievable. Jinnah has said to his followers that, Gandhi wants India to be Hindu rajya and not a secular state. All these things led to the partition of India into India & Pakistan. While India has come out the grim situation of partition, whereas Pakistan is still under turmoil by keeping one leg in Islamic ideologies and other in democracy.

M.J. Akbar goes on to explain the political angle of Pakistan post partition. Just after 2 months into Independence, Pakistan has started to eye on Kashmir. With the input of religious fundamentalists, Pakistan started to train their Mujaheddin a.k.a terrorists to wage a proxy war against India. India on the other hand, had brilliantly tackled all the attacks of Pakistan in every war and defeated Pakistan. Pakistan’s humiliation went hundred degrees up when its eastern piece has fought with them to create what is now called as Bangladesh. India had helped Bangladesh to gain its independence. The more humiliation for Pakistan when more than 90 thousand Pakistan military persons surrendered before India as prisoners of war.

The book further explains the Pakistan’s stand on terrorism on a global scale. It’s no more a secret that, Pakistan’s ISI (Inter Service Intelligence) agency was the father of breeding terrorists in their backyard. It has proved time and again that, several terror groups like Laskhar-e-Tayyaba, Jaish-e-Mohmmad, Hizbul Muzahiddeen, etc… was the brainchild of Pakistan to wage an alternate kind of war against India to clinch Kashmir. The book provides an ample amount of evidence from various references that how Pakistan is nurturing terrorism in their own country. It was proved on global level when Osama bin Laden was found in the safe harbor of Pakistan, in a city called Abbottabad.

With all these dreadful attempt by Pakistan with the sole purpose of gaining Kashmir has proved nothing in favor of them. Instead they should concentrate on their country by uplifting poor who are joining terrorist organizations because they don’t have enough money to support their families. The advent of Madrasas in thousands of numbers has proved again that, the religion indoctrination has seeped into every vein of a Pakistani. As the book suggests, there is no turning back for Pakistan to see what has happened, instead, they should focus of building their future for the coming generation of Pakistan.

The book covers some more fascinating facts and figures which I have not included in my review. The book has been brilliantly written, profoundly researched and documented. A collectors gems. Written in the simplistic style with good anecdotes makes this book more readable. A recommending stuff.

My Rating:

4.5/5

Book Review #7 - Land of the Seven Rivers - A Brief History of India's Geography - Sanjeev Sanyal

Land of The Seven Rivers - Sanjeev Sanyal

I have read several books on India's History in past. There was nothing special that those books attracted. However, this one book "Land of The Seven Rivers" by the author Sanjeev Sanyal fills that gap and takes one to the cleaners.
The author has personally researched on various historical facts by travelling the length and breadths of India and other countries about the traces of its History. With a clean rendition and the pace it gives while reading the book makes anyone to read chapters after chapters. One disclaimer should be given beforehand, this should not be read in one single sitting, rather, it should be read in slow and steady manner. Since, it takes a while to digest the facts after facts that one encounters.

 If the review can be put in one single line, it is "Saptha-Sindhu (Seven Rivers), One country, Five Millennia, Startling History and one awesome book". 

Sanjeev also had authored another book, "India Renaissance: India's rise after a thousand years of decline" that's his first book, which I haven't read yet. But, it is sure in my reading cart.

Let me put it straight before going to the actual review, some of the eminent self attested historians, seculars and progressive thinkers are not going to like this book. This hits straight into their face like a missile. This book is one hell of an attempt that tries to BUST many beliefs that held strongly in traditional and regular interpretations of Indian History. One such example that the author tries to set in the first 20 pages of the book itself is:

"The white Aryans are not some Indo-European invaders that came from far away land and shooed away the illiterate Dravidians and sat and wrote Vedas. And, RIGVEDA is rather associated with our Harappan Civilization". 

I am quite sure that, this will be the burning moment for some of the eminent personalities who had attested themselves of learning about the depths and depths of Indian History.

The story narration is also quite different in this book. As the title of the book says, it is a story of the seven rivers OR sapth-sindhu. Instead of tracing the history through Kings, Kingdoms, Dynasty, War, Robberies, Attrocities, Conversions, Killings, Pillages, etc.. This book attempts to trace the history through the geography of the land and how it developped over time to become what is India is today. The one takeway from this book is, the generally held notion of India, and makes it clear that India is a country of ancient memory.

The book is a complete history of the formation of the India through the Vedic times till the new age political formation. It starts with the breakaway of the big supercontinent GONDWANA, introduction of the plate tectonics, and the much talked river Saraswati getting dried up, thereby forcing the population to move out their territories and expanding the Indianization to the outside world and how India collided with Asia, etc..
The author also attempts to give the examples of the wartime of Mahabharatha and the remaining places of Kurukshetra, Indraprasta and other related towns and the excavations that is being conducted on these places to extract more. He also gives examples of Ramayana, and the path that Ram, Laxman and Seetha matha took when they started their exile journey from Ayodhya to Lanka, crossing the mid India, Southern India, The construction of the Ramasethu Bridge (Adam's Bridge) and also attempts to give the exact location of the Kishkinda, the capital city of Monkey Kingdom (Vaali/Sugreev) place, etc..

The reading just takes you away in a fantastic journey forcing the readers to imagine a picture of all these events and how the country has formed and all the events that took place.

The book also makes a strong point on the lost river Saraswati. And the civilization that was flourised along the banks of this river and these people might be the root of our Initial Indus Civilization. The author combines not only the geographical details, but also, the genetic factor (The genes R1a1) to evaluate the question and derive that the Saraswati river must have flown alongside the Indus, thus making this river as the center for our civilization. Both sides of the arguement about the Aryans have been thorougly examined with the conclusion that the Aryans can have originated only from India being supported by the genetic evidence, which settles most of issues once and for all. This time frame also covers Sudas, Bharata Tribe and what happened to them as well as the role of the Vashista. It also goes onto provide the link between the Avesthans (Zorastrians), Iranians, Indonesians, etc.

There are chapters that goes with the title "Age of Lions" and "Mauryan Empire" which traces the development, origin and demise of the Mauryan Empire. The book also makes a strong arguement about how the lions were completely ignored and tigers have almost attained a place in every historical events, etc.. Surely, this section of Lions is a fascinating read.

The reading journey takes us to the transformation of the medival India to the time of Moghuls and Arab invaders. The excellent section comes when the development of Delhi (Old and New) throughout these Arab and Mogul Invaders rule. The book marks a profound point on the ruins of the Delhi and the exact location, description of those places.

The attempt to get the map of India through Trignometric methods for over 60 years is one of an awesome section that anyone reads in this book. The book also covers the growth of the railways network in India and hardships that went through building this. The book goes on to give the facts and figures of how the princely states like Junagarh, Hyderabad, Kashmir were inducted into India. And, how Bangladesh (Then EAST PAKISTAN) have got their Independence with the help of India, following the emergency rule for about 1 and half year, every small detail has been covered.

The book also emphasizes that Indians had a profound sense of History and have exhibited a unity. Some of the examples are like this:

"An edict by Emperor Ashoka from the 3rd century BC, is one of the 2 columns that Feroz Shah Tugluq got transported to his city with great care".

The Iron pillar stands in front of Qutub Minar complex in New Delhi is made of "almost pure Iron and yet has not rusted despite being exposed to elements of environment for about 15 centuries. The inscription on this pillar is dedicated to the Hindu god vishnu and tells of the exploits and conquests by a king called Chandra" .

A strong reason why India remained a cultural subcontinet superpower for millennials has to do something with India's ability to cope up with different cultures, race and practices. Not only religious and intellectual innovation has been witnessed in this age. But also, "the Ayurveda", Susrutha (The first sophisticated surgeon in the world) who not only mastered in conducting operations, but also, devised a fully sophisticated set of "Surgical Instruments and Procedures". Unfortunately, no one remembers this great personality these days, he was lost long ago in the medival era.

India has also seen the first learning center's of world that ever have happened. It is Takshasila - destroyed by Huns in 5th century CE. And Nalanda - destroyed by Bhuktiyar Khilji in 1193 CE which also accomponied the murder of thousands of monks. No world class universities or learning center's have emerged in India after this wreckage.

The book also enlightens us about the southern India especially the HAMPI, the cultural capital city of VIJAYANAGARA empire. Being considered as cultural heritage by UNESCO, this is one of a awesome city that was built during those times and it will certainly takes more than a week to completely evaluate and visit every temples, structures, roads and palaces. The epic structure of VIJAYANAGARA empire god VIRUPAKSHA, is still there in vandalised state, witnessing the ever painful barbaric attack by Moghul and Arab Invaders. "At its height, it was considered to be one of the largest cities of the world in those times". This whole city was destroyed in the battle of THALIKOTA during 1565. Thereby ending an ever growing, flourished kingdom to ashes.

Last but not least, the author also tells us that, Indians obsession for the fair complexion as depicted by our commercial and television media is a false notion. Rather, it has been observed that many of our prominent gods Krishna, Rama are all dark complexioned characters.

Overall, in India's civilizational progress, was brutally turned into a decline mode for thousand of years. Turkic, Arab, Mughal invaders were all somewhat successful in ruling us for decades after decades. But, sadly they are unable to contribute any significant notables like literary artifacts, in music, in monuments, in counstructing univertisites, etc.. rather, their main motto was to pillage this country and make it appear as what it is today. Without any doubt, INDIA was the richest country interms of economic reforms, in cultural aspects, in science, astronomy, universities, etc..

This book is a fascinating read. It keeps its pace from page 1 till the end. This book for sure is a sugar candy for those history buffs who are open to receive awesome knowledge and facts. Even the writing style in engaging and lucid. It is a difficult task to cover entire 6000 to 7000 years of history in just 250 odd pages. The book contains a potful of information, ancedotes, descriptions and details that comes as a surprise for anyone. And makes this book as a collectable jewel item.

My Rating: 5/5