It’s now the most populous country in the world and well poised to make a significant impact on the world of the 21st century. But what is India all about?

In India: A History, John Keay attempts to lay out what we can know about the history of subcontinental Asia.

The whole enterprise remains fraught with difficulties. How to define “India” is one of them: the British raj was about the only time the whole subcontinent was under a single authority. The author goes with a “greater India” and lays out the history of the whole subcontinent: modern day Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.

Another challenge is historical records: we might imagine there would be all kinds of records of exploits, but if they ever existed, most have been lost. We prove dependent on a few historical inscriptions which have been preserved as well as archaeological discoveries and myths and legends. And, of course, Indian history is fraught with all kinds of issues in terms of Hindu nationalism.

The author well negotiates these difficulties to present as thorough as a history of the subcontinent as is practicable. He describes what we know about the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), the entrance of the “aryans” of the Vedas, what can be known about the development of various kingdoms in the first millennium BCE, the Buddha and the development of Buddhism, the Maurya period, interaction with the West, the Gupta period, the various kingdoms in the period immediately after the Guptas in the first millennium CE, and then the long interactions/engagements/wars between various Muslim powers and native Indian kingdoms, all of which lead up to the Mughals and the British Raj.

The history can take on much more details with the Mughals, the British, and the subcontinent after Partition.

This book is quite useful in order to better understand why the subcontinent is as it is and how its societies and cultures have developed. Highly recommended. ( )

Much of the middle sections of this book become overwhelming in the detail of multiple dynasties over time, further complicated by the geographical splintering of pre-"modern" India. Of course, this is unavoidable in a single-volume history as comprehensive as this, and a rereading could be worthwhile after one has read some more specific histories.

My one quarrel, which another reviewer has noted, is the inadequacy of the maps. Although quite numerous, they do not always have the detail needed to match the text.

Be sure to get the second edition (available in paperback only, unfortunately) because it includes substantial additional chapters on post-independence India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. ( )

Exhaustive, and somewhat exhausting too, but a very interesting look at an important country and area from pre-history until recent times. While there is no way I will retain much of this, some will stick and it was definitely worth reading. ( )

This is an excellent history of India. I found it exciting, and so I was surprised that some people found it to be dry. It is detailed indeed, and there is so much to be discovered.

John Keay has done us a great service by laying out the book in sections age wise, which makes the history easy to follow. The history of the country has been extremely turbulent, with shifting borders, loyalties and influences. It can be bewildering, and the manner in which the book has been written and laid out makes it easy to follow.

It is well written, and I can only but recommend it to people who want to know about India. ( )

The material is too large for a single volume, although the author has done justice to the history of the subcontinent without any notable omissions (as Nehruvian history books are wont to do). ( )

Covers a lot of history over several millenia in one volume - and does it pretty well, with good style and coverage of multiple kingdoms. Dizzying, but good. ( )

There is a staggering amount of detail in this book and the scope, in terms of time period and subject matter covered (e.g. religion, politics etc), is huge. The text in both the hardback and paperback is, as a consequence, rather small.

Unfortunately, I found much of the content rather uninteresting, as it extensively recounts the history of dynasty after dynasty that I was not particularly interested in. There is a good deal of complexity to a number of the topics covered, e.g. development of the Hindu religion, and the authors style is not at all suited to this. Keay's writing is, at times, unnecessarily convoluted and verbose. Some may appreciate the challenge of interpreting this, but I felt that it was rather pretentious. When faced with such difficult subject matter the last thing I wanted was to have to re-read sentences in an attempt to decipher material that could easily have been delivered in a more straightforward fashion.

My interests were far better catered for by the superb 'India after Gandhi' by Ramachandra Guha, but if the history of the subcontinent from the beginning is what you're after then this is probably the book for you. Just bear in mind that it is no small undertaking. ( )

This history of India is very impressive for its readable history giving equal time across the ages and regions of India. While it seemed a little heavy on battles and rulers, it still gave a good sense of India's culture, religions, and art. I found the book an excellent even-handed history. ( )

I bought this book in 2009 on a travel to India. I was so curious about the so many different ways and cultures I encountered that I wanted to know how that all came to be.

The book gave me all the answers I was looking for. Is very well written, it gives a complete overview of the history of the subcontinent. Including not only India but Pakistan and Bangladesh. It helps understand the origin of the conflicts of that region, the cultural background, the fertile soil for the growth and development of so many religions and beliefs. From Buddha and the development of Buddhism, the unification of the subcontinent, the arrival of the Europeans, the British influence to Gandhi or the division in Pakistan and India.

I definitely recommend it to everyone wish to know more about the region! ( )

Many histories lean exceedingly towards modern circumstances and scuffles, but Keay paints an even and broad picture of India, along with neighboring regions. ( )

A fantastic history of India. Intriguing book. ( )

As history books go, I enjoy this one a lot. Very informative, and you should read it, unless you expect it to be anything more than the facts. ( )

Just finished another long book, India, A History by John Keay. I should remember that my aim in reading this was to understand better a book I read earlier [The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857]. I didn't know anything about the Mughal phase of Indian history, and also, as I discovered, no idea of prior Moslem rulers either. I did learn what the Afghan wars were, and something of the other different areas mentioned in the Last Mughal, such as the Deccan and the other princely states. There was an awful lot of information which I will not hold onto, such as, for instance, all the different dynasties in the Maratha states - in the central part peninsula which is known as the Deccan, in contrast to the northern part of India which is not part of the V shaped peninsula. It surprised me to learn that modern India really didn't exist as a single nation prior to independence from the British really, because even under the British many of the princely states and other divisions were still maintained.

I think that the book's compromise between telling all of the rulers and all of the battles, and what he did tell about was reasonable, given that India is a huge country with a lot of history. It was still too much for me to take in. Still, I got some sense of the different areas and how much the southern history diverged from the northern, and from the Bengal area for instance. Many of the Indian dynasties that I knew about were really northern India - such as one of the earliest, the Mauryas with Ashoka. I don't know if the information is available to give more of a social history to go along with some of the military events, but I certainly would have appreciated more of it, something to give me more of a sense of how life actually differed or was the same in different times and places. Most of that sense came in the form of anecdotes about the different players.

The coverage of the process of independence was pretty good, I thought. The book was published in 2000 and, of course, I wondered how it would have read differently if it had included the last few years during which India seemed to be taking off economically - although that had already started.

One pet peeve - it is extremely annoying to have maps with names on them which don't include the names that the author is talking about in the text. This happened frequently, and often I could only find the place by digging out my [Atlas of World History] and checking the index.

I don't know whether to recommend [India, a History] or not, without knowing more about what is available. It may be a good place to start to get the overall view, but if there is a good social history available, that would probably suit me better. ( )

A pleasure to read - excellent introduction to India ( )

It's massive and foreboding, but for me, the history is riveting. Keay, a graduate of Oxford, is articulate, informed, and fascinating in his monumental study of the country. What I like about it is that he relates other disciplines, like art history, anthropology, arcaheology, and the like for an all-out comprehensive study. He even includes the various interpretations of India's historical data and how the history itself has been used throughout time, from British colonialists to modern-day nationalists. Yes, a mammoth study of such a long span of time must sacrifice some sort of detail, but as an introductory text to the study of such a rich history, it serves its purpose. ( )

TBR