A Brief History of India

From medicine to mathematics, from philosophy to astronomy, from literature to music, from Buddhism to Bollywood — over five thousand years, India has played a significant role in the Asian region and around the world. At the same time, India... possessed the ability to adopt and assimilate foreign ideas, which Jawaharlal Nehru compared to a palimpsest — an ancient manuscript that has been rewritten many times without completely erasing the previous layer. The book by prominent South Asia specialist John Zubjitsky succinctly and effectively summarizes the complex and distinct stages of Indian history.

«India — the world's oldest civilization and the largest democracy. It is the center of the convergence of Eastern and Western Asia, as well as a confident guardian of the Indian Ocean… Unlike the history of China, which can be clearly divided into periods of rule by dynasties such as Yuan, Ming, or Qing, India's past is characterized by a multitude of power centers desperately battling each other. Even at the height of the empire, none of the three great Indian empires — the Mauryas, Guptas, and Mughals — controlled the entire subcontinent. And even Britain could not make such a claim until the crushing of the Marathas in 1818. But even then, the princely states, which accounted for one-third of the population, retained some nominal independence… It is not so easy to compress 5000 years of Indian history into a couple of hundred pages, attempting to reflect all the subtleties, but I will take the risk to do so». (John Zubjitsky)