India History Civilization

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.

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.

This book takes you all the way from India’s prehistoric beginnings at Mohenjo-daro to the development of Buddhism and the Maurya Empire, the Hindu empires of the Middle Ages, the Mughals who brought Islam to the mix (and created the Taj Mahal), the British Raj, and finally the fight for independence and the modern yet ageless India of today.

5,000 years of history—from the Bhagavad Gita to Bollywood—fill this masterful portrait of the world's most populous nation and a rising global power.

In the late 1800s, British engineers building some of the first railways in the Dominion of India discovered large numbers of bricks buried in the dusty plains of the Punjab. This was odd because historians were not aware of any cities or civilizations which might have constructed buildings in this area. It wasn’t until archeological expeditions in the 1920s that it was finally realized that these bricks were the remains of mighty cities built by a previously unknown ancient civilization.

Begin learning about the History of India and Indian Mythology today!

From the first agricultural settlement more than 7,000 years ago to the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great and the vast Maurya Empire, ancient India tells a story interweaved with captivating legends and cultural legacy.

Get ready to embark on a legendary adventure through ancient India – where gods, warriors, and magical creatures await! From epic battles to mischievous monkey gods, ancient India is bursting with stories of bravery, wisdom, and adventure that have inspired people for thousands of years. Wave goodbye to those boring history books – this one is packed with tales that will make you giggle, gasp, and even cheer out loud!

India-a cradle of civilization with five millennia of history, a country of immense consequence and contradiction-often defies ready understanding. What holds its people together-across its many cultures, races, languages, and creeds-and how has India evolved into the liberal democracy it is today?

There is no record of Marco Polo ever visiting the Andaman Islands, so his brief description of the islanders must have been drawn from a secondary source. They were, he wrote, “a most brutish and savage race, having heads, eyes, and teeth like those of dogs. They are very cruel, and kill and eat every foreigner whom they can lay their hands upon.”

Home to the world’s most ancient religions and practices, India is indeed a nation enriched with a fascinating history. The subcontinent has hosted a legion of great empires, monumental battles, religions, cultures, foreign invasions, and much more. From prehistoric to modern, 50 of the most formative eras of the subcontinent are discussed. Relating the zenith and nadir of India’s past, this audiobook provides crisp and riveting accounts of one of the world’s most ancient nations.

Este libro recorre todo el camino desde los inicios prehistóricos de la India en Mohenjo-daro hasta el desarrollo del budismo y el Imperio Maurya, los imperios hindúes de la Edad Media, los mogoles que trajeron el islam a la mezcla (y crearon el Taj Mahal), el raj británico y, finalmente, la lucha por la independencia y la India actual, moderna y sin edad.

When one thinks of the world’s first cities, Sumer, Memphis, and Babylon are some of the first to come to mind, but if the focus then shifts to India, then Harappa and Mohenjo Daro will likely come up. These cities owe their existence to India’s oldest civilization, known as the Indus Valley Civilization or the Harappan Civilization, which was contemporary with ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, and had extensive contacts with the former, making it one of the most important early civilizations in the world.

A Índia é tudo aquilo que um turista vê. Mas também o seu oposto. Os contrastes estão a cada esquina. O país é espiritual e material; pacífico e violento; rico e pobre; antigo e moderno. A jornalista Florência Costa—que tem laços de família com a Índia, onde viveu por muitos anos—nos leva à cozinha indiana, com seus múltiplos temperos; às festas monumentais de casamentos arranjados; à espiritualidade e às religiões e até aos banheiros (raros).

When one thinks of the world’s first cities, Sumer, Memphis, and Babylon are some of the first to come to mind. If the focus then shifts to India, then Harappa and Mohenjo Daro will undoubtedly come up, but after that, India’s other ancient cities are often overlooked. This is unfortunate, since India’s oldest civilization, known as the Indus Valley civilization or the Harappa civilization, was contemporary with ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt and had extensive contacts with the former, which makes it one of the most important early world civilizations.

Nearly everyone has played chess at some point in their lives. Its rules and pieces have served as a metaphor for society including military strategy, mathematics, artificial intelligence, literature, and the arts. It has been condemned as the devil’s game by popes, rabbis, and imams, and lauded as a guide to proper living by different popes, rabbis, and imams. In his wide-ranging and ever fascinating examination of chess, David Shenk gleefully unearths the hidden history of a game that seems so simple yet contains infinity.

Gujarat is one of the most storied sites in a storied area. Many groups and empires ruled India or tried to, and Gujarat was the power center for the region’s oldest of all, the Indus Valley Civilization. Gujarat also played an instrumental role in India’s greatest ancient empire. During the last centuries of the first millennium BCE, most of the Mediterranean basin and the Near East were either directly or indirectly under the influence of Hellenism.

Mohenjo-daro was the largest city of the Indus Valley civilization, one of the most advanced civilizations ever to have existed, and the most ancient prehistoric urban site on the Indian subcontinent. It was a metropolis of great cultural, economic, and political importance that dates from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE. Although it flourished between approximately 2500 and 1500 BCE, the city had longer-lasting influences on the urbanization of the Indian subcontinent for centuries after its abandonment.

India has been the location of many different empires throughout its long history. The Indus Valley Civilization was home to one of the world’s first civilizations more than 5,000 years ago, which was followed by the Aryan-Vedic culture and then a host of other kingdoms that flourished across the subcontinent. India has also been the birthplace of many religions. The Vedic religion of the Aryans evolved into the Hindu religion, and Buddhism and Jainism were also born in India. By the Middle Ages, India was home to many different religions and ethnic groups.

When one thinks of the world’s first cities, Sumer, Memphis, and Babylon are some of the first to come to mind, but if the focus then shifts to India, then Harappa and Mohenjo-daro will likely come up. These cities owe their existence to India’s oldest civilization, known as the Indus Valley Civilization or the Harappan Civilization, which was contemporary with ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt and had extensive contacts with the former, making it one of the most important early civilizations in the world.