In his latest book titled The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan, former US Marine and best-selling author Elliot Ackerman offers a ringside view of the war. Elliot Ackerman had left the US military for over 10 years when he was sucked into the chaos that ensued following last year’s withdrawal of American troops from … Continue reading Author and former Marine Elliot Ackerman on the 20-year American war in Afghanistan
book review
Book Review: Afghanistan Through Tariq Ali’s Eyes
Tariq Ali (Illustration: Saurabh Singh) TARIQ ALI CAN always be expected to inspire you with new information even about much talked about events. In that sense, he is often a reporter’s reporter who carries in his head rich anecdotes and side stories, not to talk of his penchant for digging out details of ambitious decisions … Continue reading Book Review: Afghanistan Through Tariq Ali’s Eyes
CP Surendran marshals powerful characters to link the old and the new
CP Surendran (Illustration: Saurabh Singh) CP SURENDRAN’S NEW novel One Love and the Many Lives of Osip B is centred on the love story of a young adult named Osip Bala Krishnan, who, as a student of a boarding school in the cantonment town of Kasauli, falls in love with his English teacher. Elizabeth Hill, who is … Continue reading CP Surendran marshals powerful characters to link the old and the new
In his first book in 10 years, Daniel Kahneman re-examines human follies, suggests remedies
Daniel Kahneman THIS IS DANIEL Kahneman’s first major book in ten years and, therefore, his first after the bestselling Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011). He departs in Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment from his previous works and complements them by re-evaluating human decisions and mistakes. A recap of his previous scholarly accomplishments would mean a quick … Continue reading In his first book in 10 years, Daniel Kahneman re-examines human follies, suggests remedies
How India Became British India
ROBERT CLIVE IS a soldier of fortune and an ambitious one at that for Sudeep Chakravarti, the senior journalist, columnist and author who has famously—and in no deliberate attempt—given life to a new genre in publishing thanks to his Bengalis. As a result of that work, one can expect more authors from various Indians cultures … Continue reading How India Became British India
Former Cambridge Analytica Exec Brittany Kaiser on Why Data is the New Oil
Targeted: My Inside Story of Cambridge Analytica and How Trump and Facebook Broke Democracy Brittany Kaiser HarperCollins 400 pages | Rs 699 SOME TIME AGO, I reviewed a book by a whistleblower from the tainted political consultant and voter-profiling firm Cambridge Analytica (CA). Christopher Wylie’s Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America was … Continue reading Former Cambridge Analytica Exec Brittany Kaiser on Why Data is the New Oil
How a Few Smart Men Mined and Manipulated Data to Con the World
Book: Mindf*ck: Inside Cambridge Analytica’s Plot to Break the World Author: Christopher Wylie Publisher: Profile Books 269 pages | Rs 599 Two sentences from its pages capture the spirit of this book by the man who is often called ‘the first great whistleblower from the millennials’s generation’. Here goes one of them: ‘Inside Cambridge Analytica, … Continue reading How a Few Smart Men Mined and Manipulated Data to Con the World
Nayanjot Lahiri: The Time Keeper
FOR THE SERIOUS academic historian that she is, Nayanjot Lahiri, author of works as stellar as Ashoka in Ancient India and Finding Forgotten Cities: How the Indus Civilization was Discovered, has reason to contend, perhaps with a slight sense of guilt, that her latest work is a “light-hearted” one. Or perhaps more than guilt, it could be her … Continue reading Nayanjot Lahiri: The Time Keeper
Mario Vargas Llosa’s New Novel Has His Trademark Cliffhangers
IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD, Mario Vargas Llosa delves deep into a period about which he has told us before—in his 1993 memoirs titled A Fish in the Water, which, besides revealing a lot about his childhood, also talked about his unsuccessful career as a politician. He contested the presidency of Peru, the country of his birth, against Japanese-origin … Continue reading Mario Vargas Llosa’s New Novel Has His Trademark Cliffhangers
Tariq Ali Resurrects Lenin from the Distortions of History (Book Review)
The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution | Tariq Ali | Verso | 384 Pages | Rs 1,750 SOVIET-ERA PUBLICATIONS have for long offered us a highly truncated picture of Vladimir Lenin. Besides those endless hagiographies, I remember reading one book that was slightly different for the age before the fall of the … Continue reading Tariq Ali Resurrects Lenin from the Distortions of History (Book Review)
Ullekh NP 