Book Review

The Indian side of COIN – a review of India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learned (Asian Security Studies) by Sumit Ganguly & David P Fidler (eds)

Why torture is wrong, and why it doesn’t work. A review of Torture and the War on Terror

Successful piracy creates a negative feedback loop by empowering criminal organisations and separatist groups – Robert Farley reviews Martin Murphy’s Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money: Piracy and Maritime Terrorism in the Modern World

Two journeys from China to India: Samanth Subramanian reviews Mishi Saran’s Chasing the Monk’s Shadow, an account of journeys along the Silk Road between China and India.

Al-Qaeda is only the beginning. Dhruva Jaishankar reviews Philip Bobbitt’s book, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-first Century.

Dhruva Jaishankar reviews India and the United States in the 21st Century: Reinventing Partnership by Teresita C. Schaffer (CSIS, 264 pages, 2009) and finds it to be a balanced and even-handed account of India-US relations

A history of the guardian of Pakistan’s ideological frontiers – a review of Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army and the Wars Within by Shuja Nawaz.

Competitive intolerance is best challenged by protecting individual rights – a review of Salil Tripathi’s ‘Offence: The Hindu Case’.

Richard Rhodes’s Arsenal of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race is an unputdownable book. It is a story of how the twentieth century’s two superpowers realised that they couldn’t just stop worrying and live on with so many bombs.

Ibn Battuta’s travels showcase the importance of Muslim trade networks and the prosperity it bought to the trading communities in India and elsewhere.