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A great read!A book on contemporary India and the myriad contradictions that define it. Luce presents a well researched and balanced picture of tod... (show more)
In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India
India remains a mystery to many Americans, even as it is poised to become the world’s third largest economy within a generation, outstripping Japan. It will surpass China in population by 2032 and will have more English speakers than the United States by 2050. In In Spite of the Gods, Edward Luce, a journalist who covered India for many years, makes brilliant sense of India and its rise to global power. Already a number-one bestseller in India, his book is sure to be acknowledged for ... (show more)
India remains a mystery to many Americans, even as it is poised to become the world’s third largest economy within a generation, outstripping Japan. It will surpass China in population by 2032 and will have more English speakers than the United States by 2050. In In Spite of the Gods, Edward Luce, a journalist who covered India for many years, makes brilliant sense of India and its rise to global power. Already a number-one bestseller in India, his book is sure to be acknowledged for years as the definitive introduction to modern India.
In Spite of the Gods illuminates a land of many contradictions. The booming tech sector we read so much about in the West, Luce points out, employs no more than one million of India’s 1.1 billion people. Only 35 million people, in fact, have formal enough jobs to pay taxes, while three-quarters of the country lives in extreme deprivation in India’s 600,000 villages. Yet amid all these extremes exists the world’s largest experiment in representative democracy—and a largely successful one, despite bureaucracies riddled with horrifying corruption.
Luce shows that India is an economic rival to the U.S. in an entirely different sense than China is. There is nothing in India like the manufacturing capacity of China, despite the huge potential labor force. An inept system of public education leaves most Indians illiterate and unskilled. Yet at the other extreme, the middle class produces ten times as many engineering students a year as the United States. Notwithstanding its future as a major competitor in a globalized economy, American. leaders have been encouraging India’s rise, even welcoming it into the nuclear energy club, hoping to balance China’s influence in Asia.
Above all, In Spite of the Gods is an enlightening study of the forces shaping India as it tries to balance the stubborn traditions of the past with an unevenly modernizing present. Deeply informed by scholarship and history, leavened by humor and rich in anecdote, it shows that India has huge opportunities as well as tremendous challenges that make the future “hers to lose.”
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Well, I don't know about this one... I read it because I was interested in India, given that I might move there. In that aspect, it is very informa... (show more)
Well, I don't know about this one... I read it because I was interested in India, given that I might move there. In that aspect, it is very informative. However, I couldn't make myself to finish it... something about his style that bothers me... too much Western-bias in my opinion. (show less)
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Loved it! It's as if this book was written for me. Of course, this means that not everyone will enjoy it as much as I did, but I think it will appeal to a wide range. What appealed to me was how, at every turn, Luce introduces something that I'm familiar with (like the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty or the rise of Hindu nationalism) and then gives me extra information and a balanced analysis. I would say this is required reading for all politicians in India but they probably already know what is being ... (show more)
Loved it! It's as if this book was written for me. Of course, this means that not everyone will enjoy it as much as I did, but I think it will appeal to a wide range. What appealed to me was how, at every turn, Luce introduces something that I'm familiar with (like the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty or the rise of Hindu nationalism) and then gives me extra information and a balanced analysis. I would say this is required reading for all politicians in India but they probably already know what is being said in here and still don't care. I'll give Luce the biggest compliment I can give any author... I'm going to find other books he has written and read all of them.
The only thing I didn't like about the book was that every so often he mentions someone or something that "we met in chapter xx" or "we will meet in chapter xx". There so many such references that it got annoying, but possibly for someone who has no clue about Indian politics this was a good thing. (show less)
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At the very least, at least every educated Indian should read this book. In spite of being born there and having lived there until I was 24, I was amazed at how little I knew about how India OPERATES: financially and economically. You have read an economist's detailed description on how and how much the government collects in taxes, how many people it employs, how decisions made by the founding fathers continue to dictate how India operates today, etc. A masterpiece on Indian business conditi... (show more)
At the very least, at least every educated Indian should read this book. In spite of being born there and having lived there until I was 24, I was amazed at how little I knew about how India OPERATES: financially and economically. You have read an economist's detailed description on how and how much the government collects in taxes, how many people it employs, how decisions made by the founding fathers continue to dictate how India operates today, etc. A masterpiece on Indian business conditions, economics and a social commentary in one. Highly recommended to everyone interested in or connected to India. (show less)
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