The Second Orbit-One man's journey. 1.4 billion dreams. By Shubhanshu Shukla - 2026

One man's journey. 1.4 billion dreams. Discover The Second Orbit

, an inspiring account of space, discipline, resilience and the pursuit of the impossible. 🇮🇳🌌 Believe. Persist. Go beyond. 📌 Disclaimer: This is a non-signed edition and is not autographed by the author

Ranjan Chakrabarti - Climate Calamity and the Wild: an environmental history of the Bengal delta C 1747-1947- Primus Books: Delhi

I am happy to share the news that a paperback edition of my book on Climate Calamity and the Wild, Primus Books: Delhi, is forthcoming. Ian Rotherham's excellent review of the book in Environment and History has fostered the increasing international presence of the work. Take a look if you have time. Summary of the book : A central argument of the book is that the history of Bengal cannot be adequately understood through conventional political or ideological narratives alone. The distinctive ecology of the delta—its rivers, wetlands, forests, shifting channels and highly variable climate—created both opportunities and vulnerabilities for human communities. Changes in river courses and hydrological regimes altered settlements, agricultural landscapes, communication networks and patterns of production and trade. Climate variability, floods, cyclones, thunderstorms and other calamities repeatedly disrupted human lives and economic activity, while simultaneously contributing to the formation and transformation of landscapes.

Indian Short Stories: 1900–2000 - Sahitya Academy - 43 powerful stories from 21 Indian languages - 2026

Indian Short Stories: 1900–2000 is more than an anthology. It brings together

— voices that witnessed colonial rule, Partition, fractured homes, suppressed anger, and the slow shaping of a modern nation. These narratives move between the sacred and the profane, the elite and the subaltern. They do not simplify India. They reveal it. If you want to understand the emotional and social journey of the 20th century, this book belongs on your shelf."

Arun Kumar - The Silent Rebellion: Labour, Caste, and Education in Colonial India’ by Cambridge University Press, 2026.

We would like to congratulate CeMIS alumnus, and Assistant Professor in British Imperial, Colonial, and Post-colonial History, University of Nottingham, Dr. Arun Kumar on the publication of his book ‘

Part of the ICAS:MP book series, the book launch will take place on 26 August 2026, in Seminar Halls 1,2,3, Kamaladevi Complex, India International Centre, New Delhi. Discussants: Professor Prabhu Mohapatra, (retired) University of Delhi Dr. Hem Borker, Jamia Millia Islamia Professor Aparna Vaidik, Ashoka University Panel Host: Manas Srivastava, Assistant Editor, The Indian Express Book Abstract: The Silent Rebellion tells a history of labour subjectivity formation at the site of education and the defiance of labouring subalterns who refused to see themselves solely as labouring bodies in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. On the one hand, the book examines how elite power—encompassing colonial officials, employers, and caste elites—attempted to integrate caste labour into their modern projects of industrial and technical education, thereby reproducing labouring conditions and subjectivities. It focuses on the hitherto neglected social histories of industrial, technical, factory, and night schools. On the other hand, the book reveals how labouring subalterns—artisans, factory labourers, and other service-providing workers—used education to challenge their portrayal as mere labouring bodies. Focusing on their desire for literary education, book learning, and their dream to become teachers, clerks, and poets—what the book articulates as the nonwork self of working lives—the book develops new analytical frameworks to write nonworking histories of working lives. See less

Historian Chris Evan's new book, coming out soon: Slavery's Long Goodbye: Capitalism, Nationalism and Christianity in the Age of British Emancipation

Historian Chris Evan's new book, coming out soon:

AN AFRICAN HISTORY OF AFRICA by Zeinab Badawi - 2026

From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence Every human being alive today is African. Not metaphorically — literally. And yet the story of the continent that gave rise to our species has been told, for centuries, by everyone except Africans themselves. This is the history they didn't want you to read in school. Not because it's too brutal — though it is: the ledgers of the slave trade, the maps carved up in European drawing rooms, the empires erased from memory to make room for a myth of an empty, timeless land waiting to be "discovered." But because it's too inconvenient. It dismantles the comforting fiction that Africa's story begins with colonizers and ends with independence, as if the twelve thousand years in between were simply silence. Zeinab Badawi doesn't ask for your comfort. She asks for your attention, to kingdoms richer than their European contemporaries, to scholars and scientists written out of the record, to the deliberate machinery of forgetting that turned a continent of civilizations into a blank space on a map. This book will make you angry. It will make you question what you were taught, who taught it, and why. That's not a flaw, it's the point. PRICE: 17,000 NGN

Stephen Grosz - The Life Examined-The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

Non-fiction – paperback; Vintage; 225 pages; 2014. Review copy courtesy of the publisher. In a bid to read more non-fiction this year, I picked up Stephen Grosz’s

, part of Vintage Publishing’s “shelf help” promotion. It first came to my attention when Victoria, who blogs at Tales from the Reading Room, chose it as one of her books of the year in my Book Bloggers’ Advent Calendar last December. In her review, Victoria said: “Everyone should read this book and feel it chip away any ice around their hearts, to let our admirable human capacity for love and compassion flow through.” And I concur: this book puts paid to the notion that non-fiction is boring or dull. I was entirely captivated by it and ate it up as quickly as I could. A series of case histories Written by Stephen Grosz, an American-born psychoanalyst who has a practice in London, it reads like a collection of short stories structured around five key themes — beginnings, telling lies, loving, changing and leaving. These, in turn, are broken into short chapters, some of which are are only a few pages long. Each chapter is a case history of one of Grosz’s patients — adults in psychoanalysis whom he has met four or five times a week for 50-minute sessions over several years. As he explains in his preface, “all tales are drawn from day-to-day practice. These stories are true, but I’ve altered all identifying details in the interests of confidentiality”. The book shows how Grosz is able to help people who feel trapped — whether by circumstance, poor decision making, foolishness, fear or past history, among other reasons — to change their lives and their behaviour for the better. It’s important to stress that these people are as ordinary as you and I. In fact, you will probably recognise friends, colleagues, family — perhaps even yourself — in these pages. For that reason alone, it makes for a riveting read, full of “light bulb moments”. It shines a light on the human condition and the terrible muddles we sometimes get ourselves into without even realising we are doing it.