India
A History
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India
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Narrated by:
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Mike Fraser
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By:
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John Keay
About this listen
"The British historian and author of Into India delivers a history that is intelligent, incisive, and eminently readable" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
Fully revised with forty thousand new words that take the listener up to present-day India, John Keay’s India: A History spans five millennia in a sweeping narrative that tells the story of the peoples of the subcontinent, from their ancient beginnings in the valley of the Indus to the events in the region today.
In charting the evolution of the rich tapestry of cultures, religions, and peoples that comprise the modern nations of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, Keay weaves together insights from a variety of scholarly fields to create a rich historical narrative. Wide-ranging and authoritative, India: A History is a compelling epic portrait of one of the world's oldest and most richly diverse civilizations.
Keay's panoramic vision and multidisciplinary approach serves the function of all great historical writing. It illuminates the present. -Thrity Umrigar, The Boston Globe.
India: A History is skillfully narrated by Mike Fraser, an Audible listener favorite.
Produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2011 John Keay (P)2024 Echo Point Books & Media, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Toby Sinclair, Shobita Punja, Rudrangsh Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Elvis Mathias
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 5
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4
The book covers all the major landmarks of Indian history from prehistoric times up to the 21st century—starting with the country’s geological origins a few billion years in the past and the migration of Homo sapiens from Africa into the region several millennia ago.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Long, complex history of the land now home to 1.3 billion people
- By bnieman on 02-22-25
By: Toby Sinclair, and others
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The Hindus
- An Alternative History
- By: Wendy Doniger
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 32 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
From one of the world's foremost scholars on Hinduism, a vivid reinterpretation of its history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the best books on Audible
- By Anonymous on 01-19-22
By: Wendy Doniger
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The Golden Road
- How Ancient India Transformed the World
- By: William Dalrymple
- Narrated by: William Dalrymple
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 3
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3
In The Golden Road, revered historian William Dalrymple corrects the record, telling the captivating story of ancient India’s ascent through a swift and breathtaking tour of the ideas and places Indians created. Treks into the sunless depths of cave monasteries illuminate the origins and spread of Buddhism. Far-flung archaeological expeditions—from the sand-blown Red Sea coast of Egypt, to Afghan mountain refuges, to verdant Cambodian jungles—reveal the impact of Indian commerce.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Completely unknown until now
- By Reader on 05-07-25
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India
- 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent
- By: Audrey Truschke
- Length: 24 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall0 out of 5 stars 0
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Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
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Story0 out of 5 stars 0
Much of world history is Indian history. Home today to one in four people, the subcontinent has long been densely populated and deeply connected to Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas through migration and trade. In this magisterial history, Audrey Truschke tells the fascinating story of the region historically known as India--which includes today's India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and parts of Afghanistan—and the people who have lived there.
By: Audrey Truschke
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Gandhi Before India
- By: Ramachandra Guha
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
Ramachandra Guha takes us from Gandhi's birth in 1869 through his upbringing in Gujarat, his two years as a student in London, and his two decades as a lawyer and community organizer in South Africa. Guha has uncovered myriad previously untapped documents, including private papers of Gandhi's contemporaries. Using this wealth of material in an exuberant, brilliantly nuanced and detailed narrative, Guha describes the social, political, and personal worlds inside of which Gandhi began the journey that would earn him the honorific Mahatma: "Great Soul".
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3 out of 5 stars
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Somewhat repetitive and lacking
- By freehope on 03-10-21
By: Ramachandra Guha
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India
- A Portrait
- By: Patrick French
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4 out of 5 stars 78
Second only to China in the magnitude of its economic miracle and second to none in its potential to shape the new century, India is fast undergoing one of the most momentous transformations the world has ever seen. In this dazzlingly panoramic book, Patrick French chronicles that epic change, telling human stories to explain a larger national narrative. Melding on-the-ground reports with a deep knowledge of history, French exposes the cultural foundations of India’s political, economic and social complexities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Epic Book by Award-Winning Author
- By morton on 10-31-11
By: Patrick French
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The Anarchy
- The Relentless Rise of the East India Company
- By: William Dalrymple
- Narrated by: Sid Sagar
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,218
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,016
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,011
The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide, and answerable only to its distant shareholders. In his most ambitious and riveting audiobook to date, William Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.
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5 out of 5 stars
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excellent book but awkward narration
- By TexasVC on 02-25-20
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The Great Mughals and Their India
- By: Dirk Collier
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 12
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8
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Story5 out of 5 stars 8
A definitive, comprehensive and engrossing chronicle of one of the greatest dynasties of the world—the Mughal—from its founder Babur to Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last of the clan the magnificent Mughal legacy is an inexhaustible source of inspiration to historians, writers, moviemakers, artists and ordinary mortals alike. Here is a fascinating and riveting saga that brings alive a spectacular bygone era—authentically and convincingly.
By: Dirk Collier
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A Concise History of Modern India
- By: Barbara Metcalf, Thomas Metcalf
- Narrated by: Raj Ghatak
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 15
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 13
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 13
The narrative focuses on the imaginative and institutional structures that have successfully sustained and transformed India, first under British colonial rule and then, after 1947, as an independent country. Woven into the larger political narrative is an account of India's social and economic development and its rich cultural life. The final chapter charts the dramatic developments of the last 20 years, from 1990 through to the Congress electoral victory of 2009, and the rise of the Indian high-tech industry in a country still troubled by poverty and political unrest.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Soporific.
- By Amazon Customer on 06-06-19
By: Barbara Metcalf, and others
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History of India
- A Captivating Guide to Ancient India, Medieval Indian History, and Modern India Including Stories of The Maurya Empire, the British Raj, Mahatma Gandhi, and More
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Randy Whitlow
- Length: 3 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
India is a land of mystery, richness, and deep spiritual discovery. Every facet of this ancient land seems scented with the famous spices that lured European traders to its shores more than five centuries ago. Here, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, and Buddhists live shoulder to shoulder in a crowded world of multiple gods and juxtaposed pilgrimage routes, each one perfectly peaceful in their own beliefs and traditions.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Amazing! Short but comprehensive at the same time
- By Rahul Paranjape on 11-07-19
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Gandhi
- The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948
- By: Ramachandra Guha
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 36 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 139
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 116
This volume opens with Mohandas Gandhi's arrival in Bombay in January 1915 and takes us through his epic struggles over the next three decades. In reconstructing Gandhi's life and work, author Ramachandra Guha has drawn on 60 different archival collections. Using this wealth of material, Guha creates a portrait of Gandhi and of those closest to him that illuminates the complexity inside his thinking, his motives, his actions, and their outcomes as he engaged with every important aspect of social and public life in the India of his time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well researched and heart touching
- By M Umar Khan on 02-01-21
By: Ramachandra Guha
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China and Japan
- Facing History
- By: Ezra F. Vogel
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 22 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
China and Japan have cultural and political connections that stretch back 1,500 years. But today, their relationship is strained. China's military buildup deeply worries Japan, while Japan's brutal occupation of China in World War II remains an open wound. In recent years, less than 10 percent of each population had positive feelings toward the other, and both countries insist that the other side must deal openly with its history before relations can improve. Ezra Vogel's China and Japan examines key turning points in Sino-Japanese history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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China & Japan is first rate by a top scholar
- By Louise Stone on 06-17-20
By: Ezra F. Vogel
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India: A Wounded Civilization
- By: V. S. Naipaul
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 20
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 20
In 1975, at the height of Indira Gandhi’s “Emergency”, V. S. Naipaul returned to India, the country his ancestors had left 100 years earlier. Out of that journey he produced this concise masterpiece: a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of a society traumatized by centuries of foreign conquest and immured in a mythic vision of its past.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Insightful & informative!
- By Kindle Customer on 05-03-24
By: V. S. Naipaul
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Ashoka
- Portrait of a Philosopher King
- By: Patrick Olivelle
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 4
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 4
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Story4 out of 5 stars 4
In this deeply researched book, Patrick Olivelle draws on Ashoka's inscriptions and on the art and architecture he pioneered to craft a detailed picture of Ashoka as a ruler, a Buddhist, a moral philosopher, and an ecumenist who governed a vast multiethnic, multi-linguistic, and multi-religious empire.
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5 out of 5 stars
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brilliant
- By Bill Drayton on 08-24-24
By: Patrick Olivelle
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A Brief History of China
- Dynasty, Revolution and Transformation: From the Middle Kingdom to the People's Republic
- By: Jonathan Clements
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
In his retelling of a Chinese history stretching back 5,000 years, author and China-expert Jonathan Clements focuses on the human stories which led to the powerful transformations in Chinese society - from the unification of China under its first emperor, Qinshi Huangdi, to the Mongol invasion under Genghis Khan and the consolidation of Communist rule under Mao Zedong. Clements even brings listeners through to the present day, outlining China's economic renaissance under Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Succinct and detailed overview of a huge topic
- By Stephen Sheafer on 08-19-20
An amazing resource for curious travelers
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2. Great narrator. Often has trouble pronouncing hard indian words, but he did his best.
3. High quality sentences and figures of soeecj
The Best book on India I've ever read or listened to
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