The Shortest History of India

John Zubrzycki

• Publisher: Old Street Publishing
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN:
  9781913083359
• Print ISBN:
  9781913083342

'A masterpiece of compression... conveys 5,000 years of history with flair and authority' JOHN KEAY
From the tantalising traces of ancient Harappan civilisation to the emerging superpower of today, here is India's story in all its contradictions, drama and splendour.
In The Shortest History of India, John Zubrzycki distils five millennia of gods and kings, conquerors and colonisers into an epic tale teeming with personalities both legendary and largely unknown outside India. Gautama Buddha, Alexander the Great and Mahatma Gandhi share the stage with Candragupta ('India's Julius Caesar'), Nizam Saqqa, the water-carrier who became king for a day, and Raziyya, the first Muslim woman to rule in the subcontinent.
The later chapters reveal a modern India riven by contrasts: the brutal reality of partition and the fantasies of Bollywood, booming IT businesses and expanding slums. In conclusion, Zubrzycki asks whether internal challenges - from religious tensions to an increasingly undemocratic regime - might still thwart India's rise to wealth and power.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• A Note on Pronunciation, Place Names and Dates
• Introduction
• 1: Lost Civilisations
• 2: Religious Revolutionaries
• 3: The Classical Age
• 4: The Coming of Islam
• 5: The Magnificent Mughals
• 6: Merchants and Mercenaries
• 7: The Lighting of the Fuse
• 8: The Long Road to Freedom
• 9: Creating the Nation State
• 10: A ‘New India’?
• Acknowledgements
• Suggested Reading
• Image credits
• Index
• Advertisement
• Copyright