A New History of India, now in its fifth edition, explores today's affluent India. This edition remains the most readable and illuminating one-volume history of India and brings students up-to-date on current developments.

The history of India is the engrossing story of an ancient civilization, reborn as a modern nation. More a continent than a single nation, India is home to over one-fifth of humanity, yet it remains a mystery to most non-Indians, barely appreciated and poorly understood. Stanley Wolpert's India provides a much-needed, concise overview of Indian history and culture. His new preface brings the book up to date, discussing national elections, the economic effects of the new globalization, and the consequences of joining the nuclear arms race.

Beginning in 1947, when 'India and Pakistan were born to conflict', renowned India scholar Stanley Wolpert provides an authoritative, accessible primer on what is potentially the world's most dangerous crisis. He concisely distills sixty-three years of complex history, tracing the roots of the relationship between these two antagonists, explaining the many attempts to resolve their disputes, and assessing the dominant political leaders. While the tragic Partition left many urgent problems, none has been more difficult than the problem over Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan. This intensely divisive issue has triggered two conventional wars, killed some 100,000 Kashmiris, and almost ignited two nuclear wars since 1998, when both India and Pakistan openly emerged as nuclear-weapon states. In addition to providing a comprehensive perspective on the origin and nature of this urgent conflict, Wolpert examines all the proposed solutions and concludes with a road map for a brighter future for South Asia.

Tilak and Gokhale, Gandhi's immediate predecessors in the Indian independence movement, could not be more contrasting figures. Tilak is often portrayed as an extremist; Gokhale a moderate. Yet their individual contributions, while so different from each other, were reliant upon a constant interaction--each responding to the other's pronouncements and policies. In the final analysis, it was Gandhi's ability to synthesize the nationalist tendencies of Tilak and the moral principles of Gokhale that gave the independence movement its ultimate form and success. Stanley Wolpert, a leading scholar of Indian history, makes plain for the first time the importance of the relationship of these two great men to the shaping of India's destiny.