Dateline 1857:
Revolt against the Raj
by Rudrangshu Mukherjee & Pramod Kapoor
Roli Books, 2008
From one of the most well-informed historians of the 1857 uprisings comes a lush picture book and essay to help us commemorate the 150th anniversary of the events that ran from 1857 to 1859. Maps and pictures help the reader navigate the event. Mangal Pandey is dethroned, but in his place is the uprisings' vibrancy – in slogans such as this, from Jhansi: "The people are God's, the country is the Badshah's and the two religions govern." The only problem is the book is physically unwieldy: 17x11cm. (Vijay Prashad)
My Guantanamo Diary:
The detainees and the stories they told me
by Mahvish Rukhsana Khan
PublicAffairs, 2008
Khan, an Afghan-American, was one of the main interpreters for the men in the US prison at Guantanamo Bay. Her book is a cry from the heart. She saw in these men, mostly innocent, the faces and gestures of her own family members, grandfathers and granduncles, uncles and cousins, loving and chiding, here behind wire and mortar, held down by the brutality of the US 'war on terror'. The iguanas of Guantanamo, she acidly points out, have more rights (through the Endangered Species Act) than the 'enemy combatants' behind the wires. (VP)