India Discovered

The Recovery of a Lost Civilization

By John Keay

1981

First Published

4.10

Average Rating

256

Number of Pages

7H49M

Audio Length

Two hundred years ago, India was seen as a place with little history and less culture.Today it is revered for a notable prehistory, a magnificent classical age and a cultural tradition unique in both character and continuity. How this extraordinary change in perception came about is the subject of this fascinating book. The story, here reconstructed for the first time, is one of painstaking scholarship primed by a succession of sensational discoveries. The excitement of unearthing a city twice as old as Rome, the realization that the Buddha was not a god but a historical figure, the glories of a literature as rich as anything known in Europe, the drama of encountering a veritable Sistine chapel deep in the jungle, and the sheer delight of categorizing 'the most glorious galaxy of monuments in the world' fell, for the most part, to men who were officials of the British Raj. Their response to the unfamiliar—the explicitly sexual statuary, the incomprehensible scripts, the enigmatic architecture—and the revelations which resulted, revolutionized ideas not just about India but about civilization as a white man's prerogative. A companion volume by the author of the highly praised A History and The Great Arc.

Avg Rating

4.10

Number of Ratings

257

5 STARS

34%

4 STARS

45%

3 STARS

19%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

John Keay

Author · 16 books

John Stanley Melville Keay FRGS is an English journalist and author specialising in writing popular histories about India and the Far East, often with a particular focus on their colonisation and exploration by Europeans. John Keay is the author of about 20 books, all factual, mostly historical, and largely to do with Asia, exploration or Scotland. His first book stayed in print for thirty years; many others have become classics. His combination of meticulous research, irreverent wit, powerful narrative and lively prose have invariably been complimented by both reviewers and readers. UK-based and a full-time author since 1973, he also wrote and presented over 100 documentaries for BBC Radios 3 and 4 from 1975-95 and guest-lectured tour groups 1990-2000. He reviews on related subjects, occasionally speaks on them, and travels extensively.