First published in 1931, Robert Byron’s Essay on India evaluates the state of colonial rule in India and analyses the contemporary problems facing the country. Based upon Byron’s travelling experiences within India in 1929 as a correspondent for the Daily Express, the work explores political factors more fully than in Byron's earlier writings, evaluating the successes and failures of British colonialism in the region.
This title, first published in 1990, provides a close contextual analysis of how influential Indian policy-makers have perceived India's interests within the ASEAN region since Indian independence in 1947. Placing these perceptions in the context of India's broad strategic and foreign policy framework, Ayoob analyses the policies which had emerged by the close of the 1980s and stresses the close link between the futures of the two regions. Including a thorough analysis of superpower involvement, as well as Indian relations with Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia, this is a comprehensive study of great value to students with an interest in Indian and Southeast Asian history and diplomacy.
Of the five major sociologists whose views on Indian society are assessed in this work, originally published in 1979, Marx and Weber made a special study of the subject and had something definite to say about the future of Indian society. Herbert Spencer was primarily concerned with the effects of colonial rule on India’s progress, while Durkheim and Pareto tended to observe Indian society from a comparative point of view. However, as this study shows, all five sociologists touched on two special aspects of Indian society – Indian religion and the caste system. The other features of Indian society which they discussed in their various writings range widely from marriage and family structure, through village communities and the social structure of cities, to political organization, the educational system, economic conditions, and the future progress of Indian society. Dr Madan demonstrates the correctness of Marx’s contention that the political subordination of India was the one great hindrance to the future progress of Indian Society. He points out, though, that Marx failed to see clearly the effects of the caste system on economic development, and shows that this aspect was more correctly assessed by Max Weber. On the other hand, in Dr Madan’s view, Weber’s observation that Indian religion was ‘other-worldly’ and therefore a great obstacle to progress in Indian society lacked incisiveness. By focusing on a neglected aspect of the writings of five of the great figures in sociology, the book gives a new insight into their work, and at the same time highlights many hitherto unrecognized facets of India’s complex social structure.
First published in 1986, this book sets Kipling firmly in the historical context not only of contemporary India but of prior Anglo-Indian writers about India. Despite his enthusiastic reception in England as ‘revealer of the East’, in India he seems to have been regarded as just one more Anglo-Indian writer. The author demonstrates the traditionalism of Kipling’s use of the themes of Anglo-Indian fiction – themes such as the ‘White Man’s grave’, domestic instability, frustration and loneliness. In particular, Kipling is shown to be writing in a strongly conservative idiom, concentrating on the role of the British hierarchy as the determining factor in a response to India, on British insecurity and fears of a repeat of the 1857 mutiny, and regarding Indian institutions only in so far as they represented a threat to British rule. Conservative critiques of liberalism are also discussed.
First published in 2001, this book sets out to shed light on traditional controversies in Mill scholarship, underscore the significance of the contribution Mill made to associationist psychology, argue he is not entirely successful in explaining why art matters, and that this failure is linked to a deep tension in his mature work — rooted in his unwillingness to shake off the moral psychology he was raised on. The book examines various episodes and tensions in Mill’s life and work and how they relate to and informed his philosophy — while also giving a critical account of it. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy.
First published in 1976, this Routledge Revivals reissue presents an analysis of the Swat Pathans, the people of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, who belong administratively to Pakistan despite being a fiercely independent group, with their own codes and ways of life. Akbar S. Ahmed, who knows the Swat Pathans well through his family connections, presents a clear and sophisticated analysis of their complex society. The study provides an anthropological and critical re-examination of the ethnography of the Swat Pathans and the author suggests specific alternative models of social organization. The book also represents an important contribution to the general debate in the social sciences between the ‘methodological individualists’ and the ‘methodological holists’, and challenges some of the theoretical and methodological premises in anthropology. In particular the author is critical of Professor Fredrik Barth’s study of Swat Pathans, for he believes that the ‘Swat models’ have inadvertently become the basis for generalized, and often incorrect, understanding of models of Pathan socio-political organization in the social sciences.
Books of great political insight and novelty always outlive their time of birth and this reissued work, initially published in 1985, is no exception. Written shortly after the formation of Charter 77, the essays in this collection are among the most original and compelling pieces of political writing to have emerged from central and Eastern Europe during the whole of the post-war period. Václav Havel’s essay provides the title for the book. It was read by all the contributors who in turn responded to the many questions which Havel raises about the potential power of the powerless. The essays explain the anti-democratic features and limits of Soviet-type totalitarian systems of power. They discuss such concepts as ideology, democracy, civil liberty, law and the state from a perspective which is radically different from that of people living in liberal western democracies. The authors also discuss the prospects for democratic change under totalitarian conditions. Steven Lukes’ introduction provides an invaluable political and historical context for these writings. The authors represent a very broad spectrum of democratic opinion, including liberal, conservative and socialist.
First published in 1974. As logician, economist, political theorist, practical politician and active champion of social freedom, John Stuart Mill is a figure of continuing importance. In this book the author does full justice to the range of Mill’s achievements, providing an introductory guide to his most important and best known writings including Autobiography, A System of Logic, Utilitarianism, Liberty, and The Subjugation of Women. In their treatment of his works, the author seeks to emphasise Mill’s approach to those issues — education, the conflict between social order and individual freedom, the unresolved state of the social sciences, rights and duties of citizens in a democratic state — which remain most alive to us today. At the same time Mill is seen as part of his own age, responding to the anxieties that beset his contemporaries. This book will be of interest to students of politics and philosophy.
Published in 1940, The Politics of Democratic Socialism covers a number of subjects including social psychology, economic history, Marxist doctrine and the academic subject of politics to name a few. With Durbin’s compulsion to explain and defend the views about social and economic policy that he believes to be true, makes this an interesting, insightful and educational book for those who want to learn about socialism and democracy.
