The unruly Brahmaputra has always been an agent in shaping both the landscape of its valley and the livelihoods of its inhabitants. But how much do we know of this river’s rich past? Historian Arupjyoti Saikia’s biography of the Brahmaputra reimagines the layered history of Assam with the unquiet river at the centre. The book combines a range of disciplinary scholarship to unravel the geological forces as well as human endeavour which have shaped the river into what it is today. Wonderfully illuminated with archival detail and interwoven with narratives and striking connections, the book allows the reader to imagine the Brahmaputra’s course in history. This evocative and compelling book will be interesting reading for anyone trying to understand the past and the present of a river confronted by the twenty-first century’s ambitious infrastructural designs to further re-engineer the river and its landscape.

An oral-history-based biography of a seminal Asian-American activist. The book traces Embrey's life from her youth in the Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles, to her harrowing experiences in the Japanese internment camps, to her many decades of passionate advocacy on behalf of her fellow internees.

A short history of the Chipko movement in India, one of the world's most famous examples of a grassroots environmental protest movement. This is a revised and expanded edition of a widely-reviewed book originally published in 1990.

Richard Holbrooke, who died in December 2010, was a pivotal player in U.S. diplomacy for more than forty years. Most recently special envoy for Iraq and Afghanistan under President Obama, Holbrooke also served as assistant secretary of state for both Asia and Europe, and as ambassador to both Germany and the United Nations. He had a key role in brokering a peace agreement among warring factions in Bosnia that led to the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. Widely regarded to possess one of the most penetrating minds of any modern diplomat of any nation, Holbrooke was also well known for his outsized personality, and his capacity to charm and offend in equally colossal measures. In this book, the friends and colleagues who knew him best survey his accomplishments as a diplomat, activist, and author. Excerpts from Holbrooke's own writings further illuminate each significant period of his career. The Unquiet American is both a tribute to an exceptional public servant and a backstage history of the last half-century of American foreign policy.

The great director John Ford (1894-1973) is best known for classic westerns, but his body of work encompasses much more than this single genre. Jeffrey Richards develops and broadens our understanding of Ford's film-making oeuvre by studying his non-Western films through the lens of Ford's life and abiding preoccupations. Ford's other cinematic worlds included Ireland, the Family, Catholicism, War and the Sea, which share with his westerns the recurrent themes of memory and loss, the plight of outsiders and the tragedy of family breakup. Richards' revisionist study both provides new insights into familiar films such as The Fugitive (1947); The Quiet Man (1952), Gideon's Way and The Informer (1935) and reclaims neglected masterpieces, among them Wee Willie Winkie (1937) and the extraordinary The Long Voyage Home. (1940).

North-East India, comprising the seven contiguous states around Assam, the principal state of the region, is a relatively unknown, yet very fascinating region. The forest clad peripheral mountains, home to indigenous peoples like the Nagas, Mizos and the Khasis, the densely populated Brahmaputra valley with its lush green tea gardens and the golden rice fields, the moderately populated hill regions and plateaus, and the sparsely inhabited Himalayas, form a unique mosaic of natural and cultural landscapes and human interactions, with unparalleled diversity. The book provides a glimpse into the region’s past and gives a comprehensive picture of its physical environment, people, resources and its economy. The physical environment takes into account not only the structural base of the region, its physical characteristics and natural vegetation but also offers an impression of the region’s biodiversity and the measures undertaken to preserve it. The people of the region, especially the indigenous population, inhabiting contrasting environments and speaking a variety of regional and local dialects, have received special attention, bringing into focus the role of migration that has influenced the traditional societies, for centuries. The book acquaints the readers with spatial distribution, life style and culture of the indigenous people, outlining the unique features of each tribe. The economy of the region, depending originally on primitive farming and cottage industries, like silkworm rearing, but now greatly transformed with the emergence of modern industries, power resources and expanding trade, is reviewed based on authentic data and actual field observations. The epilogue, the last chapter in the book, summarizes the authors’ perception of the region and its future.

Part of the ‘Transition in Northeastern India’ series, this volume critically explores how Northeast India, especially Manipuri society, responded to colonial rule. It studies the interplay between colonialism and resistance to provide an alternative understanding of colonialism on the one hand, and society and state formation on the other. Challenging dominant histories of the area, the essays provide significant insights into understanding colonialism and its multiple effects on economy, polity, culture, and faith system. It examines hitherto untouched areas in the study of Northeast, and discusses how social movements are augmented, constituted or sustained. This book will be of great interest to researchers and scholars of modern history, sociology and social anthropology, particularly those concerned with Northeast India.

The Celestial Dancers: Manipuri Dance on Australian Stage charts the momentous journey of the popularization of Manipur’s Hindu dances in Australia. Tradition has it that the people of Manipur, a northeastern state of India, are descended from the celestial gandharvas, dance and music blessed among them as a God’s gift. The intricately symbolic Hindu dances of Manipur in their original religious forms were virtually unseen and unknown outside India until an Australian impresario, Louise Lightfoot, brought them to the stage in the 1950s. Her experimental changes through a pioneering collaboration with dancers Rajkumar Priyagopal Singh and Ibetombi Devi modernized Manipuri dance for presentation on a global stage. This partnership moved Manipur’s Hindu dances from the sphere of ritualistic temple practice to a formalized stage art abroad. Amit Sarwal chronicles how this movement, as in the case of other prominent Indian classical dances and dancers, enabled both Manipuri dance and dancers to gain recognition worldwide. This book is ideal for anyone with an interest in Hindu temple dance, Manipur dance, cross-cultural collaborations and the globalizing of Indian Classical Dance. The Celestial Dancers is a comprehensive study of how an exceptional Hindu dance form developed on the global stage.

This book is a compilation of multi-disciplinary research papers on the various aspects of ‘Quit India to Free India and Free India to New India’, presented and discussed at the National Seminar on ‘From Quit India to New India: History & Society’, organized by Mohan Lal Sukhadia University, Udaipur in collaboration with Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi. Topics of collected research papers range widely over time, from historical perspectives of Quit India Movement launched by Mahatam Gandhi in 1942 to the contemporary challenges of 21st century to make a ‘New India’ announced by Prime Minister Shri -Narender Modi in 2018, as well as political, cultural, social, economic studies of pre- and post-independent India. Taken together, to reaffirm the commitment towards ‘New India’ and to mark the 75th anniversary of Quit India Movement, studies presented in the book complement each other to provide a succinct overview of many of the key themes of historical and contemporary research on Indian history and society.