I enjoy reviewing books. The gold standard for me in this context is Teju Cole’s remark of 1 August 2024 on Facebook which captures succinctly what a good review must accomplish. Cole suggests, ‘[w]hen you put a book out into the world, it might get “positive” or “negative” reviews. The dogs bark, the caravan passes. But there’s yet another category of reception: one in which a critic gives meticulous attention to what the book is trying to do, to its possible antecedents, to the techniques with which it is put together. Those reviews are always special. They not only understand what you’re up to; they help you understand better what you’re up to.’
Let us not forget that gold standards are aspirational tenets. I have particularly enjoyed reading these books and sharing their warm wisdom with readers (links below).
https://thewire.in/books/rebecca-solnit-recollections-of-my-non-existence
https://thewire.in/books/the-power-of-writing
https://www.himalmag.com/reviews/confronting-death-doctors-on-mortality
Review of Itty Abraham ed. South Asian Cultures of the Bomb: Atomic Publics and the State in India and Pakistan. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2009; The Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 70 / Issue 03 / August 2011, pp 858-859
‘The World as Viewed from China: Theorizing Governance, Leadership and Relationality in the 21st Century’, China Report, 2020; Vol.56, No.1, pp.129-138.
My latest review article is due to appear in the journal Victorian Studies in volume 66, number 3. It examines two important contributions capturing fascinating slices of the nineteenth century. The first of these books is edited by Rahul Sagar and titled, To Raise a Fallen People: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Indian View on International Politics. The second is by Sebastian Raj Pender titled, The 1857 Indian Uprising and Politics of Commemoration. I thoroughly enjoyed the review exercise. Hope you do too.