A "New York Times Book Review" Notable Book of the Year
A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
From the author of "M" and "A Death in Brazil" comes "Midnight in Sicily."
South of mainland Italy lies the island of Sicily, home to an ancient culture that--with its stark landscapes, glorious coastlines, and extraordinary treasure troves of art and archeology--has seduced travelers for centuries. But at the heart of the island's rare beauty is a network of violence and corruption that reaches into every corner of Sicilian life: Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. Peter Robb lived in southern Italy for over fourteen years and recounts its sensuous pleasures, its literature, politics, art, and crimes.

This fresh and up-to-date interpretation of India's rich and extraordinary history, written by a leading authority in the field, explores themes in ancient, medieval and especially modern India. Peter Robb's accessible study analyzes India's civilizations, empires and regions through the ages, and now also evaluates present-day developments and opportunities. This second edition of A History of India: * Examines the relationships between politics, religious belief, social order, environment and economic change * Assesses, from c. 1860, British colonialism, Indian nationalism and nation-building, popular protest movements, religious revivals, and reinventions of caste, community and gender * Discusses long-term economic development, the impact of global trade, and the origins of rural poverty * Has been revised in the light of the latest scholarship, and now features a Chronology as well as a fully reworked final chapter which brings the story up to the present day and carefully considers India's prospects and new roles in the world. Centered around clearly expressed and well argued topics, issues and explanations, A History of India remains the ideal introduction for all those who wish to understand the drama and vitality of India's past, its present situation and its future challenges.

1) This book examines agrarian development and state policies in the Gangetic Bihar of colonial India. 2) Rich in archival sources this book is a significant contribution to the history of modern Bihar. 3) The author being a renowned historian in UK, this book will be of interest in departments of history in UK.

1) This book examines agrarian development and state policies in the Gangetic Bihar of colonial India. 2) Rich in archival sources this book is a significant contribution to the history of modern Bihar. 3) The author being a renowned historian in UK, this book will be of interest in departments of history in UK.

First published in 1983, Rural India intends to provide pictures of Indian rural society in the past, from the standpoint of relationships and exchanges between the countryside and the more general physical and cultural context of which it is a part. A predominant theme is control over land and people. Others are the impact of British rule, the political role of local networks and ties, and the response to and internalising of external stimuli. Attempts are made to examine the concepts employed by scholars in relation to the perceptions of the villagers and similarly to interpret economic and social data in radical ways. This book will be of interest to student of South Asian studies, history, economics and agriculture.

This book analyses the character of British rule in nineteenth-century India, by focusing on the underlying ideas and the practical repercussions of agrarian policy. It argues that the great rent law debate and the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 helped constitute a revolution in the effective aims of government and in the colonial ability to interfere in India, but that they did so alongside a continuing weakness of understanding and in effective local control. In particular, the book considers the importance of notions of historical rights and economic progress to the false categorisations made of agrarian structure. It shows that the Tenancy Act helped to widen social disparities in rural Bihar, and to create political interests on the land.

The first systematic attempt to introduce a full range of Japanese scholarship on the agrarian history of British India to the English-language reader. Suggests the fundamental importance of an Asian comparative perspective for the understanding of Indian history.

Delving into Brazil's baroque past, Peter Robb writes about its history of slavery and the richly multicultural but disturbed society that was left in its wake when the practice was abolished in the late nineteenth century. Even today, Brazil is a hation of almost unimaginable distance between its wealthy and its poor, a place of extraordinary levels of crime and violence. It is also one of the most beautiful and seductive places on earth. Using the art and the food, and the books of its great nineteenth century writer, Machado de Assis, Robb takes us on a journey into a world like Conrad's Nostromo. A world so absurdly dramatic, like the current president Lula's fight for power, that it could have come from one of the country's immensely popular TV soap operas, a world where resolution is often only provided by death. Like all the best travel writing, A Death in Brazil immerses you deep into the heart of a fascinating country. Vivid, obsessive and intelligent, this is an utterly enthralling account.

This book analyses the character of British rule in nineteenth-century India, by focusing on the underlying ideas and the practical repercussions of agrarian policy. It argues that the great rent law debate and the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 helped constitute a revolution in the effective aims of government and in the colonial ability to interfere in India, but that they did so alongside a continuing weakness of understanding and in effective local control. In particular, the book considers the importance of notions of historical rights and economic progress to the false categorisations made of agrarian structure. It shows that the Tenancy Act helped to widen social disparities in rural Bihar, and to create political interests on the land.

Examining agrarian societies in colonial India, the papers in this collection include analyses of late 18th-century records on South India and North Bengal, and a look at the late colonial period. Statistical examinations provide a basis for a revised understanding of social mobility and land transfer, while a study of technology and labour absorption, a demographic approach to famines and epidemics, and a socio-political perspective of tenancy acts blend history and social science. Four chapters compare the Indian experience with those of Japan and other Asian countries, which the editors use to argue for the historical presence of internal forces of change in Indian agriculture, which has not been fully recognized in either Western or nationalist historiography. They suggest the fundamental importance of an Asian comparative perspective for the understanding of Indian history.

This collection of 15 articles, several of them already classics in their field and all written by scholars currently at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS), provides an informative, up-to-date and accessible introduction to the study of South Asia. In focusing upon religious, social and political ideologies and institutions, it demonstrates the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach to this vast and complex region: history, geography, politics, economics, law, philosophy, religion, art, literature and language are all well represented. The contributors examine the past as well as the present, but there is particular emphasis upon the nature and impact of the "colonial encounter", the reworking of "traditional" institutions in recent times, and the role of ideologies in forging identities or creating divisive trends. In conveniently bringing together leading articles on South Asia, at an affordable price, the Reader is aimed at students beginning to move beyond basic texts and narratives, or who seek to view South Asia in a comparative light. It shows how scholars of the region are opening upon fresh perspectives, and asking new questions of its

This collection of 15 articles, several of them already classics in their field and all written by scholars currently at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS), provides an informative, up-to-date and accessible introduction to the study of South Asia. In focusing upon religious, social and political ideologies and institutions, it demonstrates the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach to this vast and complex region: history, geography, politics, economics, law, philosophy, religion, art, literature and language are all well represented. The contributors examine the past as well as the present, but there is particular emphasis upon the nature and impact of the "colonial encounter", the reworking of "traditional" institutions in recent times, and the role of ideologies in forging identities or creating divisive trends. In conveniently bringing together leading articles on South Asia, at an affordable price, the Reader is aimed at students beginning to move beyond basic texts and narratives, or who seek to view South Asia in a comparative light. It shows how scholars of the region are opening upon fresh perspectives, and asking new questions of its

Naples is always a shock, flaunting beauty and squalor like nowhere else. It is the only city in Europe whose ancient past still lives in its irrepressible people. In 1503, Naples was the Mediterranean capital of Spain's world empire and the base for the Christian struggle with Islam. It was a European metropolis matched only by Paris and Istanbul, an extraordinary concentration of military power, lavish consumption, poverty and desperation. It was to Naples in 1606 that Michelangelo Merisi fled after a fatal street fight, and there released a great age in European art - until everything erupted in a revolt by the dispossessed, and the people of an occupied city brought Europe into the modern world. Ranging across nearly three thousand years of Neapolitan life and art, from the first Greek landings in Italy to the author's own, less auspicious, arrival thirty-something years ago, Street Fight in Naples brings vividly to life the tumultuous and, at times, tragic history of Naples.

A "New York Times Book Review" Notable Book of the Year
A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
From the author of "M" and "A Death in Brazil" comes "Midnight in Sicily."
South of mainland Italy lies the island of Sicily, home to an ancient culture that--with its stark landscapes, glorious coastlines, and extraordinary treasure troves of art and archeology--has seduced travelers for centuries. But at the heart of the island's rare beauty is a network of violence and corruption that reaches into every corner of Sicilian life: Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. Peter Robb lived in southern Italy for over fourteen years and recounts its sensuous pleasures, its literature, politics, art, and crimes.

On March 16, 1978 Aldo Moro, a former Prime Minister of Italy, was ambushed in Rome. Within three minutes the gang killed his escort and bundled Moro into one of three getaway cars. An hour later the terrorist group the Red Brigades announced that Moro was in their hands; on March 18 they said he would be tried in a "people's court of justice." Seven weeks later Moro's body was discovered in the trunk of a car parked in the crowded center of Rome.
"The Moro Affair" presents a chilling picture of how a secretive government and a ruthless terrorist faction help to keep each other in business.
Also included in this book is "The Mystery of Majorana," Sciascia's fascinating investigation of the disappearance of a major Italian physicist during Mussolini's regime.

A "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year
As vividly and unflinchingly presented herein with "blood and bone and sinew" ("Times Literary Supplement") by Peter Robb, Caravaggio's wild and tempestuous life was a provocation to a culture in a state of siege. The end of the sixteenth century was marked by the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, a background of ideological war against which, despite all odds, brilliant feats of art and science were achieved. No artist captured the dark, violent spirit of the time better than Caravaggio, variously known as Marisi, Moriggia, Merigi, and sometimes, simply M. As art critic Robert Hughes has said, "There was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same." Robb's masterful biography "re-creates the mirror Cravaggio held up to nature," as Hilary Spurling wrote in "The New York Times Book Review," "with singular delicacy as well as passion and panache."