A L Basham (1914-1986) was one of the finest historians of last century and current apostles of Indian history like Romila Thapar, R. S. Sharma etc owe their celebrity status to legendary Basham. I read 'The Wonder that i was India' couple of years back and was impressed by the sheer simplicity of the text without loosing any weight of the scholarship. 'A Cultural History Of India' is another gem from him, first published in 1975 under his editorship. Its a collection of essays and articles on various facets of Indian culture by great scholars and intellectuals like Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, B. B. Lal, S. A. A. Rizwi, Romila Thapar etc.
This book is written with such a passion and scholarship that no one can put if off once started; it enlightens you with unleashing so many hidden treasures that you can not stop yourself saying what a wonder that is India. It does not suffer either from right wing exaggeration - nationalistic chauvinism or from left critic of Hindu religion, art and culture. It has dedicated chapters on Indo-China historic interactions, India's influence on South East Asia, India's contact with ancient west and on ancient-medieval literature etc. Before reading the last few i did not know that "Few India leaders proposed to Cabinet Mission of 1946 that one of the descendants of Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah II should be made Constitutional Emperor of India, this would solve the partition problem". It many sound like an absurd idea but all ideas are absurd idea before they are actually unleashed. There are many such revelations in this book. I took almost 3 weeks to finish this magnum opus so please get a copy and enjoy the ride
Highly Recommended (9/10)
