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Chargement... The Age of Aspiration: Power, Wealth, and Conflict in Globalizing Indiapar Dilip Hiro
Aucun Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre.  jasonpettus | Jun 8, 2016 |  aucune critique | ajouter une critique
"Nearly four decades ago, Dilip Hiro's Inside India Today, banned by Indira Gandhi's government, was acclaimed by The Guardian as simply 'the best book on India.' Now Hiro returns to his native country to chronicle the impact of the dramatic economic liberalization that began in 1991, which ushered India into the era of globalization. Hiro describes how India has been reengineered not only in its economy but also in its politics and cultural mores. Places such as Gurgaon and Noida on the outskirts of Delhi have been transformed from nondescript towns into forests of expensive high-rise residential and commercial properties. Businessmen in Bollywood movies, once portrayed as villains, are now often the heroes. The marginal, right-wing Hindu militants of the past now rule the nominally secular nation, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as their avatar, one whose electoral victory was funded by big business. Hiro provides a gripping account of the role played by Indians who have settled in the United States and Britain since 1991 in boosting India's GDP. But he also highlights the negatives: the exponential growth in sleaze in the public and private sectors, the impoverishment of farmers, and the rise in urban slums. A masterful panorama, The Age of Aspiration covers the whole social spectrum of Indians at home and abroad"-- Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Discussion en coursAucunCouvertures populaires 
 Google Books — Chargement...GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)330.954Social sciences Economics Economics Economic geography and history Asia Indian subcontinentClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne: (4)
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I was disappointed to stop by the Goodreads page for Dilip Hiro's The Age of Aspiration, as part of researching this review, and see that not a single writeup besides mine has been posted there; that's a real shame, because out of the half-dozen or so books I've read in the last several years on contemporary Indian society, this is easily the smartest and most insightful out of all of them, an incredibly dense 400 pages that attempts to tie together the rising capitalist middle-class in that soon-to-be-superpower nation, the decaying remnants of the old socialist system that still mainly informs the governmental agencies, the uncontrollable corruption within that system that has inspired this completely separated new layer of middle-class capitalism (one that's essentially being slapped on top of the old layer, with no attempts whatsoever to integrate the two), the rising Maoist terrorist activities within the rural mining regions that is a direct result of this new capitalist layer, the complicated ties between Indian business and the Western partnerships in America and Great Britain, and a whole lot more, all by a veteran journalist whose controversial 1976 India Today originally got him banned by a very unhappy Indira Gandhi. Now, granted, this is a difficult book to get through; loaded down with facts and figures, and nimbly dancing across a century-plus of history mostly unknown to Americans (ugh, and all those hundreds of unpronounceable names), this is not going to be an easy read for Westerners like me who know only the absolute basics about Indian politics, business and culture; but believe me when I say that the slog is worth it, or at least for those who want a data-heavy, policy-oriented look at why things in the Subcontinent are so complicated and fractured here in the 2010s. For those people, this comes strongly recommended; but for those who don't think they're up for the task, you would be best off staying away from this book altogether.
Out of 10: 7.8, or 9.3 for fans of wonky, policy-heavy nonfiction (