Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and awarded an honorary degree by Sunderland University, Michael David Wood is an English historian and broadcaster who has presented many documentary series, documentary films and written books on English history.
This time he takes us to a journey to India and manages to give us a view on its ten-thousand years of history and how India has become, as he puts it, the laboratory of the humanity. The enchanting narrative coloured by his excitement on the subject lead us to the subcontinent of Asia, the most populous democracy in the world, with over 1.2 billion people, and the place that have given birth to the most influential civilizations on Earth and where humankind might has learned to think towards the development of cultures.
He begins telling us about the first humans who stepped on there, which is believed to have taken place 70,000 years ago when sea levels were 200 feet lower then they are now, allowing travel from Africa via long-since submerged land bridges. Through archaeologist discoveries, Wood shows how the first human settlements were like and how they probably managed to raise civilizations and then its follow declines. He gives us a sense about climate changes that has shaped the region and the historical background to explain the turns in the cultural and social developments which have affected the India’s population minds.
Michael Wood explores every aspect of the country, talking about its geography, the recent economy growth, the Indian caste system - social stratification and social restrictions in India in which social classes are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups – the most important historical figures – such as Gandhi – and about the world's major religious traditions which were born in there - Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. The ideas have flourished in the place since mankind has settled there and their power has changed everything since then until nowadays.
In India the present meets the past and the future constantly and contrasts are seemed to be a very strong reality all the time. Although it is a country, it doesn´t mean that it has any kind of uniformity. The diversity is showed everywhere: in ideas, in religion thought, in culture, in customs, in ethnic groups and even in wildlife.
The author explains that some of the rulers in the past knew how to handle with this diversity and bring prosperity to the whole society through the mutual respect. For my astonishment, for example, Woods brings to the light the Muslim conqueror named Zahir ud-din Muhammad Babur (1483-1530), who managed to rule his empire without any religious discrimination, accepting every kind of religious traditions.
After the British, India organized itself as a country in the modern sense to get position in the international politics, but the country still have more than 500 religions and sects, many spoken languages and dialects and it is the most intercultural places in the world.
The Story of India by Michael Wood is an amazing and "hard to put down" book and I recommend it for sure. Although the book brings us some extraordinary pictures it would be a great idea find out some more visual materials in the internet in order to understand this magnificent place.
This book is the result of the BBC series about India. There is a same name DVD presented by the author. To find out more, please visit the link bellow.
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