Select one of the listed books on the history of India for our next meeting

At our last meeting everyone felt that instead of reading a book on China one month and India the next, etc., we should instead focus on one country for a period of time in order to better absorb the history and gain a deeper, broader context. Given that our last book was the novel "White Tiger", by an Indian author and set in India, our next book will also be "on" India. There was also a strong consensus that our next book should be a 'history of India' given that many of us don't know an enormous amount about the country. Please vote on one of the choices - all of which are a history of India pretty much 'from the beginning'. I did my best to do some 'quick and dirty' research into which historical surveys of India are "the best". While obviously hugely subjective, I looked at various factors (# of citations, inclusion of at least one Indian author, availability, etc.) and hopefully these books offer a good menu of choices.

In order to ensure we don't need to rush to finish whichever book is selected (terrible memories of school days), I may schedule two meetings for this selection. I'll divide the book into two parts and we'll read the first part for the first meeting, etc. None of the selections are too daunting in terms of just page length but my experience with history 'texts' is that they can be tough going. The last thing we want is for the reading of our books to be a chore so better to take a somewhat relaxed pace.

Lastly I want to assure members that I fully intent to read books on Asian countries other than China and India - though it will take a bit longer for us to get to Korea, Indonesia, Japan, etc. than I had first envisioned, will will indeed get there eventually.

Regards,
Joe

PS: Vote!

Asia Book Club of NYC