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Balti Britain book cover
Balti Britain
A Journey Through the British Asian Experience
2008
First Published
3.47
Average Rating
392
Number of Pages
In this funny, surprising, touching, and controversial study, Ziauddin Sardar travels to the main Asian communities in the U.K.—among them Leicester and Birmingham, Glasgow and Bradford, Tower Hamlets and Oldham—to tell the history of Asians in Britain, from the arrival of the first Indian in 1614 through the entangled days of colonialism, to the young extremists in Walthamstow mosque in 2006. He interweaves throughout an illuminating account of his own life, describing his carefree childhood in Pakistan, his family’s emigration to racist 1950s Britain, and his adulthood straddling two cultures. Along the way he asks a bevy of probing questions, among them Are arranged marriages a good thing? Does the term Asian obscure more than it conveys? Do Vindaloo and Balti actually exist? How far does “the disease that is in us is of us and within us” describe Islamic terrorism? And is multiculturalism an impossible dream?
Avg Rating
3.47
Number of Ratings
64
5 STARS
17%
4 STARS
33%
3 STARS
33%
2 STARS
14%
1 STARS
3%
goodreads

Author

Ziauddin Sardar
Ziauddin Sardar
Author · 19 books

Ziauddin Sardar has written or edited 45 books over a period of 30 years, many with his long-time co-author Merryl Wyn Davies. Recent titles include Balti Britain: a Journey Through the British Asian Experience (Granta, 2008); and How Do You Know: Reading Ziauddin Sardar on Islam, Science and Cultural Relations (Pluto, 2006). The first volume of his memoirs is Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim (Granta, 2006). His recent television work includes a 90-minute documentary for the BBC in 2006 called 'Battle for Islam'. Sardar's online work includes a year-long blog on the Qur'an published in 2008 by The Guardian newspaper. Sardar is a Visiting Professor of Postcolonial Studies in the Department of Arts Policy and Management at City University London and is Editor of the forecasting and planning journal, Futures. He is also a member of the UK Commission on Equality and Human Rights. His journalism appears most often in The Guardian and The Observer, as well as the UK weekly magazine, New Statesman. In the 1980s, he was among the founders of Inquiry, a magazine of ideas and policy focusing on Muslim countries. His early career includes working as a science correspondent for Nature and New Scientist magazines and as a reporter for London Weekend Television.

(from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziauddin... )<< — *You can know more from his own site: http://www.ziauddinsardar.com/Biograp...

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