The Wonder That Was India Vol. 1: A survey of the history and culture of the Indian sub-continent before the coming of the Muslims

This book is nothing but a communist anti indian anti hindu propaganda... according to this book, Everything that is good in india came from Outside..

According to Al basham there is no ram or his kingdom . He described ram as insignificant ruler and he didn't research enough on India .I am not writting this due to any religious sentiments but there is not good in this . If we want to criticise anything we must have enough knowledge about that and this is totally based on his propaganda of reflecting indians as uncivilized tribe or incapable people .

A wonderful read...People who want to know about India with diverse prospective, should must read this wonderful book..You may disagree with some points if you are a vivid and diverse reader but this book will definitely upgrade yr information and prospective about Bharat/India...

If anyone thinks that one can understand India’s broad philosophical & cultural lineage by reading one book than one is doomed for failure & misconceptions. In fact being ignorant is better than being I’ll informed specially in this case. This book like many book written by western professors who themselves did research by reading one book after another without any deep philosophical insights & practice is full of ignorance. Anyone new here, let’s not forget the great mathematician Neil Abel’s great advice - “if one wants to progress one should read the masters not their pupils”. Here is a book not even written by a pupil but by a completely ignorant western professor who’s not even trained for such a venture.India like Greeks in the west & China in the east is full of rich philosophical & cultural heritage. One cannot understand the Greek’s or China’s rich intellectual foundations by reading a single book. Though it’s unfortunate that India’s history is completely distorted by western intervention. Gone are the days where people relied on books written by the likes of Sir Jadunath Sarkar,Sir RG Bhandarkar or RC Majumdar. Now most of the younger generations read history books written for competitive exams (which are poorly researched) or the ones by the premier Marxist historian.Our own great poet Rabindranath Tagore once said to his western friend who was quite ignorant about Indian culture & wants his advice on where to start, Tagore said - “if you want to learn about India, read Vivekananda”. I would advise the same thing to those who have read this book. Don’t read it with hate but with open mind & you will see the ignorance of the author very clearly. He’s not well informed about the Itihas, Puranas, Dharmashastras etc. Anyone who have read PV Kane or the critical edition of Mahabharata can see clearly the author is either lying to ignorant general reader(his true intended audience) consciously or he is really ignorant about India’s rich culture. When it comes to India’s philosophy, I don’t want to even comment.I can go on & on but in the end I believe I have wasted my time reading this book but I’m happy on learning why this book is popular among general audience because it’s meant for them who have no idea about India’s rich cultural heritage & wouldn’t bother to pursue to do so. I didn’t read this book to understand about my country because I have read all of the authoritative texts. I just read this book because I was curious why it’s quite popular & I now know why & at least on that regard I’m happy with this book. The success of this book proves the ignorance of majority of Indian of their cultural heritage.

Book has excellent content but must purchase the latest edition published by pan Macmillan