3 Review(s)

India: A Portrait is the story of India and its monumental economic miracle. Summary of the Book The second most-populated country in the world, India and its potential to shape the new century has astounded the world. In his book, Patrick French takes readers through the epic changes which takes stories from ordinary humans and puts them in a national perspective. Showing how small businessmen like C. K. Ranganathan grew into business moguls employing more than a thousand people, he explains how India has managed to set up shop, despite its diversity in traditions, languages, ethnicities, religions and cultures. Patrick French examines the root of the problems India faces, one of which is trying to understand whether India is really rich or poor as it seems to portray itself. How has its Muslim population resisted radicalization to such a considerable extent and more importantly why? Why do successful NRIs wish to go to India, abandoning bright futures outside their motherland? And what is the future for this great country? Will it align itself with the West or become another opponent, like Russia and China? In his portrayal, French examines Maoist revolutionaries and underworld dons, trying to find out what holds this elaborate play that is India together. About Patrick French Patrick French is a British historian and writer. He has also written: Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer, The World Is What It Is, Liberty or Death – India’s Journey to Independence and Division and Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History Of A Lost Land. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, where he studied English and American literature, he is a founding member of the inter-governmental India-UK Round Table, a former executive committee member of the Tibet Support Group UK and was a Green Party candidate for Parliament in the 1992 general election. He was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for an authorized biography of Nobel Laureate V.S Naipaul.