Book Review: Caravans by Scott C Levi

1 Thought

Upon arriving in Central Asia, the Multanis would take up residence in one of several locations. Caravans tells the fascinating story of tens of thousands of intrepid Multani and Shikarpuri merchants who risked everything to travel great distances and spend years of their lives pursuing their fortunes in foreign lands. From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, these merchants lived as guests in cities and villages across Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran and Russia. Setting aside the belief that caravan traders were simple peddlers, Scott S Levi examines the sophisticated techniques these merchants used to convert a modest amount of merchandise into vast portfolios of trade and money...
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Book Review: God's Traitors

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Throughout the four-day search for him, Gerald hid in an Owen-built priest-hole beneath the chapel fireplace. A woman awakes in a prison cell. She has been on the run, changing her lodging every few days but the authorities have tracked her down and taken her to the Tower of London. She is placed in solitary confinement and interrogated about the Gunpowder Plot. The woman is Anne Vaux - one of several ardent, extraordinary, brave and at times, utterly exasperating members of the Vaux family. The year is 1606. God's Traitor is an interesting and gripping account that explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England through the eyes of the aristocratic Vauxes of Harrowden Hall. It presents...
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Book Review: The Death & Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi

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We have seen how in executing the Father of the Nation Nathuram did what, in a sense no Hindu had dared to before him. The Death & Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi is an explosive and original analysis of the assassination of the 'Father of the Nation'. Who is responsible for the Mahatma's death? Just one determined zealot, the larger ideology that supported him, the Congress-led Government that failed to protect him, or a vast majority of Indians and their descendants who considered Gandhi irrelevant, and endorsed violence instead? In this meticulous study, the author has presented an account which can be considered more meditative than mere factual presentation of a national tragedy that...
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