Temptations of the west - How to be Modern in India, Pakistan and Beyond

Author: Pankaj Mishra
Publisher: Picador India
Year: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 438
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780330434683

Description

From Bollywood stars in Bombay worrying whether they are sexy enough to a heroin addict in Pakistan mocking jihad: from Indian mafia dons with political ambitions to Afghans waiting for American benevolence; from Kashmir! Muslims longing for democracy to Tibetan Buddhists fighting to preserve religion in politics - Temptations of the West is a travel book unlike any other.

In a narrative as revealing as it is profound. Pankaj Mishra's new book dissolves the old boundaries between East and West, challenging every romantic cliche about the conflicts and dilemmas at the heart of the modern world.

COMMENTS:

‘Brilliant…. Vivid and lyrical.’
--- John Gray, Guardian

'Mishra offers a compelling blend of memoir, narrative history, politics, religion and philosophy. Thoughtful, intelligent and rigorous, this is a deep, insightful study of the very notion of modernity' "
--- Observer"

'Mishra is a precise observer and a subtle analyst, keener to understand than to blame . . . In a thousand details - such as the grimace he catches on the face of a sycophantic businessman as a politician's bodyguard rinses curry-stained hands in his swimming pool - he salutes humanity's paradoxes and wit'
--- "The Economist"

‘A brave book – and. For anyone in the West able to look beyond clichés and rhetoric, an essential one.’
--- New York Times

‘Acute and illuminating.’
--- New Yorker

'Wonderful. The narrative is interspersed with sophisticated cultural commentary . . . and, if anything, the point of this important book is to collapse fallacious distinctions between East and West' "
--- Conde Nast Traveller"

Contents

Prologue
Benares: Learning to Read

Part I:
1. Allahabad: The Nehrus, the Gandhis and Democracy
2. Ayodhya: The Modernity of Hinduism
3. Bollywood: India Shining

Part II:
1. Kashmir: The Cost of Nationalism
2. Pakistan: Jihad Globalized
3. Afghanistan: Communists, Mullahs, and Warlords

Part III:
1. Nepal: The 'People's War
2. Tibet: A Backward Country