10,000 years of India

There&rsquos a new &lsquoIndia&rsquo book out in the shops practically every month. Each supposedly epic in sweep &mdash covering the gamut from the exotic to the economic. Each attempting to pin down this &lsquoancient behemoth poised on the brink of global greatness&rsquo or some variation on that theme. Most of these are packaged as coffee-table books &mdash somewhat repetitive images of the ghats of Benaras with exaggerated extended captions.

This is where Michael Wood&rsquos The Story of India (BBC Books, Rs 895) does an about-turn. For readers who haven&rsquot heard about him or seen his BBC history series, &lsquoThe Story of India&rsquo, it might seem like one more coffee-table picture book but it really isn&rsquot. The book attempts a serious telling of 10,000 years of Indian history, a task which is in equal parts daunting and compelling.  

Wood refreshingly starts his travels tracing the history of the subcontinent with Kerala and not New Delhi &mdash where he starts with the great migratory journey towards India&rsquos southern tip from the Horn of Africa. From that starting point of migration and identity he travels the length and breadth of the country &mdash from the obvious to the somewhat obscure. He tackles almost every aspect of the region&rsquos past and present &mdash history, culture, regions, religions and the major historic players whose ideas and opinions shaped the subcontinent.

The writing is simple and engaging, and it makes for really good reading for anyone interested in a basic overview of the Indian subcontinent that goes beyond a guidebook. The book has lovely photographs, but, unfortunately, many of them get a little lost in the text-heavy layout.