Silent Spring

Title: Silent Spring

Author: Rachel Carson

Publisher: Mariner 2002 (First published 1962)

ISBN: 0-618-24906-0

Pages: 300

The 40^th anniversary edition of the world’s pioneering environmentalist book is no less appealing and relevant as it was four decades ago. Rachel Carson shot to prominence in environment friendly circles with her masterpiece when the world was only waking up to the dangers of a pesticide industry spawned from chemical warfare research during the second world war. With several examples of how the harmful chemicals damage the environment and the health of the people, Carson drove home the point to rein in the nascent industry before it was too late. This book was instrumental in forming public opinion which eventually led the ban of DDT in the U.S. and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) whose green-flag became mandatory for new projects.

Industry has developed many poisonous and biologically potent chemicals as pesticides which used indiscriminately against the plants and animals with widespread killing everywhere. Not only the pests, but the entire flora and fauna of the area is subjected to the devastating effects, so that these chemicals may be called biocides, instead of pesticides. The menace of pests grew to such large proportions when agriculture moved to large, single-crop, intensive farming style. Humans are also affected indirectly with the wide application of toxins, since the long-term health effects of the chemicals are not studied in sufficient detail.

The chemical pesticides come in two varieties, chlorinated hydrocarbons like DDT and organic phosphorous products like malathion. The harmful biological effects of the various products are given in good detail. Another form of toxins, called systemic insecticides which make parts of the crop plant harmful to insects also cause long term side effects. Chemicals sprayed on the crop often leech into ground water and surface water. Animals which drink the contaminated water accumulate on their tissues. Even though the original application was in low doses, the eventual building up of the chemical becomes lethal. Soil is also contaminated, which retains the toxicity for several years. The poison gets collected in crops too, by absorbing poison. Peanuts, which is an intercrop with cotton absorb benzene hexachloride (BHC) sprayed on cotton and become inedible. The farmers also suffer financial losses.

Weed control among the sides of the road and tourist places by spraying pesticides often destroy the natural beauty of scenic places, indiscriminately killing off attractive shrubbery and wild flowers, badly affecting the tourist potential. Biological control is the safe option here, in the absence of which selective spraying to remove trees and shrubs which obstruct drivers’ vision. By selectively cultivating shrubs, growth of trees can be prevented. As an example of biological control, planting marigold in rose buds wilted by nematode worms helped kill them off, due to a chemical secreted from marigold roots. Another illustrative example given is that of the Klamath weed, which which migrated along with man to America and flourished there because of lack of predators. As it caused economic impacts in several states, two species of beetles were imported from Europe which eventually reduced the weed to 1% of its previous spread. Carson rises the pertinent question that whether any civilized society can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.

One chapter is devoted to the logic behind the title of the book. In Michigan university campus, the dutch elm trees began to wilt due to a fungal attack spread by the bark beetle. The university uniformly sprayed DDT on to the trees in a bid to save them. The power accumulated on the leaves and bark, eventually reaching the soil and water. Earthworms ingested the chemical in their body which cycled to the digestive tracts of robins which ate them. The singing birds died en masse and the spring enlivened by robin’s songs became silent. Toxic sprays used to eradicate fire ants were carried off to rivers and streams, killing salmon schools. Such fish kill harms industry too, which provide food to millions. During the 50’s aerial spraying of chemicals was widespread causing maximum damage to the environment. This method was evidently a costlier and less efficient way rather than treating each mound specifically with lower dose chemicals.

Man is also a victim of his own poisoning. Human liver is driven to hard work to decompose pesticides like parathion and convert it to harmless products using the enzyme cholinesterase. Many chemicals hinder the production or action of these enzymes. This results in accumulation of toxins in body tissues, especially fat, as most pesticides dissolve in fat. This goes on normally until the fat is required to be metabolized during times of food shortage at which time ill effects appear. These poisons also may cause mental illnesses like memory loss to schizophrenia and depressive reactions. Genetic mutations are also observed in some cases. Writing in 1962, the field of genetics was still a nascent field, but Carson rightly picks up the potential hazards. Carcinogens are abundant in the toxic chemicals. These will easily exceed the safe limit as several exposures add up the content inside. A safe dose may come on top of another safe dose that it may be said that zero dose is the safe dose.

Insects developing resistance to pesticides is a nightmarish proposal, but that’s what several species had developed. This creates a vicious circle as more and more dosage is applied to kill the tough pests. Such chemical usage is like travelling in a long one-way street, where you don’t know where it will end. Resistance develops in the Darwinian fashion and can be as fast as a few weeks to several years. Biological control offers an excellent alternative way here too. Sterilizing insects by subjecting a control population to radiation is suggested. Another option is to breed the natural predators to the harmful insects, which too have been tested successfully in the field. Destroying the pests by targeting them to disease-causing bacteria like bacillus thuringiensis is lauded as a biological method, which however wouldn’t be approved by today’s environmentalists. Recent uproar in India over Bt Cotton which incorporated the disease-causing mechanism on the plant body.

The book was a splendid initiative, being the first popular version of scientific truths which usually appeared in peer-reviewed journals, out of reach for lay readers. The author’s long experience with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proved time and again by the barrage of apt examples and illustrations which drive home the point effectively. The book is also free of stereotypical affiliations, as she is not averse to limited and targeted use of chemicals. In an era when aerial spraying, which drenched humans and children in such dangerous toxins, this book was really an eye opener.

Some negative aspects should also be pointed out to keep a balanced view. It criticizes intensive crop farming as the cause of pests burgeoning. However, such farming is behind bumper harvests which feed the billions around the globe. The author’s praise for backyard farms where the pest problem is not severe is ill placed. The book is too much dependent on anecdotes. The incident of the scientist swallowing small dose of parathion unable to consume antidotes because of instant paralysis can only be conjecture. Also, to produce maximum startling effects of chemical spraying, comparisons are made to the effects of nuclear radiation. Even the list of water contaminants start with radioactive waste from reactors, labs, hospitals and fall out from nuclear explosions. Only then industrial pollution is listed! Such comparisons are clearly out of proportion. On some occasions the need to conserve is wrongly focussed. Saving water fowls and salmon is emphasized only because they provide recreation to hunting parties and anglers. The author’s laments on the disappearance of these beings are in terms of the wasted opportunities of pleasure, as “these people spend three billion dollars annually for licenses, tackle, boats, camping equipment, gasoline, and lodgings. Anything that deprives them of their sport will also reach out and affect a large number of economic interests” (p.139). Carson’s leaning on popular appeals might have been for influencing the public opinion. The futility of chemical pesticides are driven too far, in that she takes great pains to illustrate examples where the application of the chemical has caused economic damage to the farmer. However, such an argument is counter-productive and illogical. The farmers resort to chemicals because they are cheap, easy to obtain and apply. If it would have caused such financial investment and costs as the author makes out to be, no body would even use them in the first place!

The book is a must-read for every environmentalist and every student of science. It also shows how a book, written with sincerety and dedication can change public opinion in a beneficial way for the environment.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Mao’s Great Famine

Title: Mao’s Great Famine – The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62

Author: Frank Dikotter

Publisher: Bloomsbury 2010 (First)

ISBN: 978-1-4088-1219-8

Pages: 348

The product of deep research into the communist party’s archives in China! Dikotter delved into the long hidden data recently declassified by the party and thrown open to researchers. It describes how China slid into its worst famine during Mao’s industrializing initiative, called ‘Great Leap Forward’. Though the official line always was that natural factors were to blame for the disaster, the author lays threadbare the misguided and faulty programs undertaken by Mao and implemented ruthlessly by the grassroots cadres which were the real reason behind the huge human losses faced by any nation anywhere on the globe.

Ever since capturing power by military means in 1949, Mao was under the shadow of Stalin. When he died in 1953, Mao aspired to step in to his shoes in leading the communist world. Assuming leadership involved transforming China from the peasant country as it was to a fast moving industrialized nation. In 1956, the ‘Socialist High Tide’ was announced to increase production of corn, cotton, coal and steel. This required collectivization of resources in the countryside. Personal property was denounced and anyone holding on to them were labelled as rightist conservatives and purged. The program was a disaster and called off in 1956 itself. The year was also marked by the Hungarian revolution which was brutally put down by invading Soviet troops. Mao decided to preempt any such disturbances on home soil and announced his ‘Hundred Flowers’ campaign. Everybody was urged to come out with criticism of the system, but the output was unprecedented and threatened to unsettle Mao. He quickly called it off and took on en elimination drive against people who voiced their dissent.

The 40^th anniversary of the Russian Revolution unfolded in 1957 in Kremlin. Khrushchev declared a program to overtake the U.S. in industrial production in 15 years. Mao didn’t lag behind and immediately announced that China will similarly overtake Britain, which was still a major industrialized nation then, in 15 years. Thus started the Great Leap Forward. Opponents of the program were purged at every level of party and government by labelling them ‘rightist conservatives’. Liu Shaoqui, the No.2 in the party and Zhou En Lai, the prime minister were publicly humiliated and compelled to tow the chariman’s line. The project began with a ‘water conservancy drive’, in which rivers, streams and large water bodies were diverted to arid regions for increasing agricultural output. China was very primitive in the use of machines then, and all the work was done by manual labour, often through compulsion and forced labour. Millions of farmers were called off from their fields and put on backbreaking irrigation programs, exposed to sun and harsh winter. Thousands died due to hunger and illness. Mao was insensitive to such human suffering, he mused, “Wu Zhipu claims he can move 30 billion cubic metres (of earth), and I think that 30,000 people will die. Zeng Xisheng has said that he will move 20 billion cubic metres, and I think that 20,000 people will die. Weiqing only promises 600 million cubic metres, maybe nobody will die” (p.33). Ever rising targets listed only the quantity of earth moved and the places of work were dubbed ‘killing fields’ by the people. To increase farm production, Mao proposed a three-pronged strategy, increase fertiliser use, close cropping and deep ploughing. Every conceivable nutrient, including human and animal waste and mud-baked homes were pulled down and thrown on the fields. The confiscation extended even to human hair, as in Guangdong, women were forced to shave their heads to contribute fertiliser or to face a ban from the public canteen. The people’s communes were organized in military style and they declared a war on nature. Wages were at rock bottom and the farming activities were given a military charade.

Stalin promoted industry at the expense of agriculture, while Mao decided to bring industry to the countrysides by whipping up steel production in the backyard furnaces of the communes. Every available piece of scrap iron including pots, pans and farm implements were melted. To provide fuel for these kilns, trees were indiscriminately felled and a great ecological disaster was caused. However, much of the produced steel was slag and useless for further use. As farmers were forcibly diverted to these programs, agricultural output plummeted, though the overzealous party cadres made up for the shortfall by fabricating data of a bumper crop on paper. Mao was so overtaken by joy that he lost all touch with the reality. He asked the people to eat five meals a day to bring down the ‘surplus grain stock’! State levy was based on the fictitious accounts, causing a great deal of grain to be robbed from the countryside. The regime allocated food generously to the cities, while expecting the rural people to live off their ‘bumper harvests’. The problem was exacerbated with export of grain, mainly to the Soviet Union which trebled in three years, to provide money for the increasing import of machinery. When the real problem was perceived by the party, it exhorted the people to ‘eat less’ to meet foreign commitments. Mao urged people to be vegetarian, when he said, “We should save on clothing and food to guarantee exports, otherwise if 650 million people start eating a little more, our export surplus will all be eaten up. Horses, cows, sheep, chicken, dogs, pigs: six of the farm animals don’t eat meat, and aren’t they all still alive? Some people don’t eat meat either, old Xu didn’t eat meat and he lived till he was eighty. Can we pass a resolution that nobody should eat meat, and that all of it should be exported?” (p.81-82). When the famine reared its horrible head, Mao said, “When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill” (p.88). Sino-USSR relations soured in 1960, forcing the bigger brother to pull out its advisers from China, which retaliated by accelerated repayments of its loans. When people were dying from famine, China advanced its repayment schedules.

Chinese industry also suffered from the overdrive. Product quality dwindled, as the net produce was the only term of comparison. Newly imported machinery performed poorly due to lack of infrastructure and mediocre maintenance. Welfare facilities were nonexistent or meagre. Transportation was a bottleneck and the product wasted on godowns and railway stations. All these factors caused a slump in industrial output in 1961 and 62, from a boost in 1958 and 59. All large shops were collectivised, with fall in quality of service. Repair shops of even personal items struggled to cope with the increasing demand. The author claim that even graves were destroyed to make way for farm land and corpses turned to fertiliser. Mao put forward another campaign to eradicate pests, rats, flies, mosquitos and even sparrows, which was included in the list as they ate grain! Masses sounded drums and scared them until they dropped from the sky due to sheer exhaustion. It was only after the insects mushroomed that the party realised that sparrows ate insects too. They were promptly taken off the list.

When famine began to ravage the countryside, people ate tree bark, mud and even resorted to cannibalism. The book abounds with gruesome detail of how the need of survival forced people to shake off even the last vestiges of civilized notions. While the country was undergoing a terrible ordeal, the party leaders were steeped in luxury. Dikotter says, “Above them (the party officials) was Mao, living in opulence near the Forbidden City where emperors had once dwelled, his bedroom the size of a ballroom. Sumptuous villas, staffed with chefs and attendants all year round, were at his beck and call in every province or major city” (p.192). Brutal collectivization and replacement of family by state overturned traditional ties of family. The young and elderly were left uncared for in times of famine. Medical facilities were unable to cope with increasing incidence of diseases. Estimates of the dead range from 23 to 36 million based on party’s public statistics. A figure of 46 million was declared by Chen Yizi, one of the party statisticians who compiled reports and who afterwards fled to the USA. The author estimates the number to be about 45 million, based on analysis of the now declassified party archives. The Great Leap Forward came to an end in 1962 when Liu Shaoqi, now head of state openly denounced the program and spoke directly to party leaders.

The book is well researched, and the horrifying details of the famine are always accompanied with anecdotes pulled out from party archives. He fully utilised the open archives and complemented with data gained interviews with famine survivors. The style is concise and lucid, with a doleful tinge. It exposes the pretensions of party leaders, including its supremo, Mao. His cultureless utterances are also found expression in the pages. When Mao fell out with the Soviets, he spewed out and accused his colleagues to “uncritically thinking that everything in the Soviet Union is perfect, that even their farts are fragrant” (p.19, based on Mao’s speeches in the Gansu province).

On the negative side, the book is purely one-sided, designed to put uncorrupted blame on the party and its leadership. However harshly the Great Leap Forward was put in practice, there were some good results coming from it, which is not mentioned in the book. Some glimpses of the gains can be gleaned between the lines. Though the famine was mainly man-made, a part was definitely due to natural factors. The author is silent on what those factors were, whether drought or flood. Also, it doesn’t accommodate the mechanism through which the country escaped the grips of famine. Overall, one gets the impression that the sole objective of the author was to malign the Chinese leadership.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Lost Discoveries

Title: Lost Discoveries – The Ancient Roots of Modern Science, from the Babylonians to the Maya

Author: Dick Teresi

Publisher: Simon & Schuster 2003 (First published 2002)

ISBN: 0-684-83718-8

Pages: 367

Dick Teresi is the author noted for his more reputed book, ‘The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?’. In the present work, he takes on a survey of ancient science and technology in the civilizations of the world, both Old and New, and traces the progress made by modern science which owes much to the inventions and discoveries of the people of a bygone era. Most of the historians of science stops short at the Old World, whereas Teresi takes the bold step to cross the Atlantic and find impressive discoveries and developments among the American Indians too. Early developments in mathematics, astronomy, geology, cosmology, chemistry and technology are investigated in the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indian, Chinese, Mayan and Arabic civilizations, with occasional forays into Incan, sub-Saharan African and polynesian communities.

The accepted paradigm of the growth of modern science is that it originated in Greece around 600 BCE and flourished till 146 BCE. Thereafter it lay dormant through the dark ages till renaissance, at which it sprouted again. During the middle ages, the Arabs kept the flame alive by translating works from Greek to Arabic. Modern Science is thought to begin with the works of Copernicus, with his heliocentric model of the universe. Teresi challenges this notion with the claim that Copernicus’ work was based, or rather influenced by the earlier works of two Arab mathematicians, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and Muayyad al-Din al-Urdi. Arabic science spread from Baghdad, Basra, Cairo to Cordoba and Toledo in moorish Spain. When Christians reconquered Spain, knowledge of these works got to them which might have percolated to Copernicus during his tenure of study in Padua. Westerners normally rubbish non-western science as superstition and religious chants which is not based on objective points of view.

The author argues that the Greeks didn’t expound the principles attributed to them by original thought. They borrowed heavily from Egypt, but specialized in geometry. Concept of zero and place value notation originated in India may be called the single greatest achievement in mathematics, which revolutionized calculations everywhere. However, modern historians of science like Morris Kline and Robert Kaplan have not been sympathetic to the early developers. Both show derogatory attitude to them, with Kline characterising Egyptian and Babylonian math as scrawling of children and called Indian mathematicians fools.

Astronomy was a field well developed in the ancient societies. Babylonians excelled in them, with computational tables developed for lunar positions for three centuries beginning with the reign of Nabonassar (747-736 BCE). These tables were later extended by the Greeks and Indians. They also divided and named the constellations of the zodiac which we still follow. The degree as a basic measure of the angle with the sexagecimal system was another noted discovery by them. Egyptians gave us the 365-day year and 24-hour days. The accurate measurements were necessitated by the need to align the great pyramids along the four cardinal directions. India was at the crossroads of dissemination of astronomic knowledge, which was greatly influenced by Babylonian ideas. Later, Islamic scholars obtained the data from India, developed it and handed over to the West. Medieval muslim astronomers produced high precision instruments for observatories and they reviewed, criticized and modified Egyptians’ works, including Ptolemy’s towering magnum opus, the Almagest. Even though not endowed with instruments, the Chinese maintained the longest existing astronomical records. Data were written also on bones which were later called oracle bones. Modern scientists has successfully traced the path of a total solar eclipse in 1302 BCE in China from these records. Interestingly, they also calculated that from these records, it may be inferred that the length of a day at present is longer by 47/1000 of a second! The Chinese observed a supernova explosion in 1054 CE in the constellation Taurus, which was visible for 23 days, during daylight too. Sunspots were also recorded by them.

The Chinese contributed a great deal in geology and chemistry. Invention of the magnetic compass, oil exploration from wells through bamboo poles, gun powder, paper and printing were the areas in which their contributions enlightened the modern world too. Alchemy may be said to be the precursor of modern chemistry, in which every possible combination of the elements were tried by the practitioners. Al Biruni and Avicenna were the greatest Arab chemists while Varahamihira and Vagbhata represented India.

From this point on, the author’s handling of modern science leaves a lot to be desired. He assumes a sardonic attitude to it, belittling and projecting as points of intense disputes, the areas of lesser agreement among scientists like big bang theory and inflationary model. In fact he severely criticises the big bang and goes overboard in announcing that it is unscientific. He almost posits that god created the universe, by looking how fine tuned the fundamental parameters are, for the maintenance of life! He even shakes modern cosmology to the core in a bid to present the theories of ancient societies in a good light even though most of them are really blurred and steeped in contradictions. Some are outright ridiculous, like the polynesians’ view that the world originated from a swelling on the head of the creator or, as another island people think that it was from a primordial coconut! The Mayans’ fourth creation cycle began in 3114 BCE and ends on Dec 23, 2012! The earlier date roughly coincides with the creation cycle in India, at around 3102 BCE.

Teresi’s reviews of physics also lacks rigour. He takes bits and pieces, often ignoring contradictory arguments and projects them as gems of ancient wisdom. Similarity to a modern theory is invariably assigned to every such item. He compares the idea of Higgs field, which gives mass to fundamental particles with the concept of ‘Maya’ in ancient India! Primitive atomic theories are equated to the theory of quarks. The theories are so basic and diverse, that anything can be interpreted from them. Any invention or theory, presently existing or which may appear in the future may be argued to have anticipated by the ancient societies. The Jainist atom comes in two versions, snigdha (smooth) and ruksha (rough), which gets magnified at the hands of Teresi who claims that this is analogous to the idea of ionic bonding! The author selectively elevates some of the concepts in a compendium, while ignoring other ideas which couldn’t be conciliated to modern theories. A case in point is Vaibhasika and Sautrantika theories, which are analogous to modern atomic theory, while quietly ignoring Yoga and Madhyamika schools of thought which stipulated that the entire world is an illusion. Incorrect propositions also find honourable mention at the hands of the author, like the Persian theory that sun’s light is obtained from the moon, or the Aztec’s belief that the mountains contain great amount of water inside. Regarding the Persian theory he says that it illustrates the principle of transformation of matter to energy!

The book is good to read, with a lot of research into each one of the ancient societies, though a little harsh on the Greek. This is really a great attempt to look past the standardised western point of view and see the progress achieved by other peoples far earlier than Europe. As he says, when Haroun al-Rashid, the caliph in Baghdad was looking hard for exotic books to be translated to Arabic, Charle Magne was trying hard to write his own name!

On the other hand, a lot of negative aspects of the book has to be pointed out. Aversion to Darwin mars the progressive character of the work. He doesn’t include Darwin in a list of scientists extending from Galileo to Francis Crick. He further comments that a broad definition of science would include astrology while a tight definition would exclude evolution. The attempt to belittle particle physics by expounding that the energy involved is too little is pathetic and inclusion of little known scientists’s quotes doesn’t add value. Teresi seems to support the creation theory. He says, “Even orthodox science can’t resist invoking the name of God” (p.191) and compares inflation theory to a great pile of sh*t (p.192). The book also includes extremely comic understatements, like “No ancient or medieval culture practiced physics at the level we’ve witnessed in the West during the past four hundred years” (p.200) and “Let us hasten to add that the Chinese never put together an all-encompassing dynamic theory as Isaac Newton did” (p.200).

In his quest paint every aspect of ancient societies in a favourable light, he rightly lauds the heliocentric model of Varahamihira, while Brahmagupta’s flat-earth postulate is glossed over. Comparisons that stretches the imagination a bit too hard are abounding in the book. The Incan belief that earth quakes are caused by serpents moving underground is equated to modern theory of s-waves of quake propagation, the Hawaiian belief that those islands are floating in the ocean is compared to continental drift, African Yoruba tribe’s belief that every deity is vibrating differently with a single god’s enery is compared to molecular vibrations leading to spectroscopy. Such examples litter the pages and makes troublesome reading.

Altogether, even though the book is readable and written with good research, the net result is a backward pulling ethos. Instead of marvelling at the present and looking to the past with a sense of thankfulness, Teresi views the present contemptuously and looks longingly to the past which he presents as glorious.

Rating: 2 Star

A History of South India

Title: A History of South India – From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar

Author: K A Nilakanta Sastri

Publisher: Oxford University Press 1997 (First published 1955)

ISBN: 0-19-560686-8

Pages: 493

A voluminous work from the master historian of South India! Sastri has been the source of reference for many historians and hardly a book on the history of this part of India gets published without a quote from one of Sastri’s works. This book too is an illustration of the commendable scholarship that has gone behind the edifying treasure trove of knowledge. The South is often neglected in general histories of India and this book seeks to rectify this malady. The South definitely had pre-Aryan people who merged with the Aryan stream trickling in from the North. It begins with a survey of the sources from which glimpses of early southern history can be gleaned. These include writings of courtiers working under royal patronage, Buddhist and Jain monks, Arabs, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese and English traders and itinerant businessmen. The authenticity of each class of writers is given briefly.

South India had human populations from very early times. Sastri suggests an ancestry of 300,000 years which is, however, unlikely from the modern scientific viewpoint. The migration of ancient men out of Africa is dated later than 100,000 years before, but that piece of information might not have been available to Sastri who wrote this book in 1947. Traces of different races like Alpine/Armanoid, proto-Australoids and proto-Mediterraneans can be observed. Highlands of Iran and Armenia might have been the early home of present-day Dravidians. The date of migration can’t be clearly made out from the mists of prehistory. This fact is corroborated by the similarities in temple worship between the ancient Sumerians and modern Tamils. Aryanisation began around 1000 BCE, continued till the Mauryan dynasty by which time it took roots firmly on the South. The sage Agastya, who finds mention in the epics of a later era might have been a historic person who led or aided the Aryanisation process. His legends were embellished during the Pandyan rule of 9^th century CE as the first grammarian of Tamil. The transformation was peaceful, gradual and touched all aspects of social life including religion, customs, politics and language. The Mauryan empire of Pataliputra enveloped large tracts of Deccan as attested by the presence of Ashoka’s rock edicts (Numbers 2 and 13) from Mysore and Andhra. Several dynasties ruled this vast area including Satavahanas, Pallavas, Cholas and Pandyas. Sastri gives detailed geneologies and family trees of the soverigns.

As can be expected from a Tamil historian, Sastri too asserts Vanji of the Cheras to be near Karur in Tamil Nadu, in contrast to locating it near Kodungallur in Kerala. The author says, “The recent archaeological excavations at this site, especially the find of Roman amphorae pieces conclusively prove the identity of modern Karur with the Vanji of the Sangam age. The attempts to locate it in at Tiruvanjaikkalam in Kerala may now be discarded” (p.124)! In that same location in Kerala too has been found Roman historical remains! A college of poets called Sangam developed in Madurai during the first two centuries CE and produced genuine pieces of local literature. Political, social and administrative life of the Tamil country is evidenced in these works. At the end of the Sangam age, around 300 CE, a night descends on the scene with the disruption of social order by the Kalabhras. Buddhism and Jainism took deep roots in South India during this period. When light dawns again in 600 CE, we find three dynasties ruling the Tamil country, the Pallavas, Pandyas and Chalukyas of Badami.  They vied with each other for supremacy and internecine warfare made the situation fluent. Chola power was in the ascendant for 250 years beginning from the 9^th century. Rajaraja and his worthy son, Rajendra I made the Cholas the greatest Hindu kingdom in that era. Four kingdoms arose from the ashes of the Cholas, the Pandya, Hoysala, Kakatiya and Yadava. Women also became rulers occasionally, as indicated by the ascension of Rudramba (reigned 1262-96) on the Kakatiya throne under the masculine name of Rudradeva Maharaja. Muslim invasion from the North started during this period with Malik Kafur reaching and destroying Hindu temples in Madurai and the South. Bahmani sultanate was established at Bidar. Vijayanagar’s rise didn’t stem this alien tide.

Vijayanagar arose as a war-kingdom upholding and retaining Hindu tradition. After three centuries - none of which convincingly assertive – it too went under the combined might of the Islamic forces bent upon establishing Muslim primacy in the South. Trade flourished during this period with foreign lands, including China. The scene dramatically changed with the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

Sastri also comes out with an extensive survey of South Indian literature. All four languages are included and is a veritable repository of reference material to students in that branch of knowledge. Even though the religion was borrowed from the North, the South more than compensated it by rich contribution to religious literature and philosophy. Bhakti movement originated in the South. Vedic exegesis by Kumarilabhatta and Prabhakara found acceptance in all parts of India. All the founders of the modern system of vedanta, Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva were from the South. On the architectural front, Buddhist Chaityas and Viharas gradually gave way to Hindu temples. Rock-cut architecture metamorphosed into working in stone and wood. The book ends with a survey of the growth of architecture during the period of study.

The book is really worth the effort in being the prominent reference work for many generations of historians. Sastri exudes authenticity and historical accuracy. The royal lineages displayed at the end of each section is unique and adds to the value. There are no negative points to be displayed regarding the veracity of the scholarship.

The book describes many episodes during the Islamic conquests of the South which portrays the cruel and inhumane faces of bigotry. We see during Malik Kafur’s invasion of Devagiri that, “he regulated administrative affairs with commendable wisdom, though in one respect he was inexorable; he insisted on pulling down temples and erecting mosques in their place” (p.230). This is nothing, when compared to the feats of Ghiyas-ud-din Damghani against Ballala, the Hoysala monarch, as “Treating him (Ballala in 1341) at first with apparent consideration, Ghiyas-ud-din persuaded him to part with all his riches, horses and elephants; and then had him killed and flayed. His skin was stuffed with straw and hung upon the wall of Madura, where, says Ibn Batuta, ‘I saw it in the same position’ (1342)” (p.240). The Muslim monarchs treated their subjects in a cruelly partisan manner, as we see in the Bahmani kingdom that, “A less amiable side of Muhammad II’s (1378-97) character, however, is to be seen during the years of famine between 1387 and 1395, when the relief measures he organised were confined to his Muslim subjects” (p.246). Another ruler in the same line, Muhammad III Lashkari (1463-82) was even more diabolic, “he destroyed the great temple at Kondavidu, built a mosque at its site, and earned for himself the title of ghazi, by killing with his own hands the Brahmin priests of the temple” (p.256).

The book includes a prudent remark from Duarte Barbosa on Kerala; “albeit the country is but small, yet it is so full of people, that it may well be called one town from Mount Dely to Coulam (Quilon)”. He also estimates that there are about 20% Muslims on the malabar coast!

The book is a fountain-head of reference material, which is also its disadvantage. Most parts are not easy to read, with the huge load of data on literature and architecture testing the patience of the lay reader. Kerala history is rarely mentioned and is a glaring omission in a book of this calibre. A lot of personal and literary names are included with phonetic symbols thrown in, but a legend also should have been included to avoid confusion. Glorification of brahmins was one corollary of the work as he says, “In civil life, the Brahmins occupied a highly respected position. With the exception of the few who entered the state service in the army and elsewhere, they generally devoted themselves to religious and literary pursuits and stood outside the race for wealth and power” (p.318)!! The maps included in various chapters are cluttered with place names and are not properly legible. There is another flaw in the organisation of the chapters, in which the first pages of chapters 14 (literature) and 16 (architecture) are interchanged erroneously, however, this is not a printer’s error.

Even with all these positive and negative aspects, the book is recommended for any serious student of history, though not for the general and casual reader.

Rating: 2 Star

Freakonomics

Title: Freakonomics

Author: Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner

Publisher: Penguin 2006 (First published 2005)

ISBN: 978-0-141-01901-7

Pages: 284

This book is really a thriller, but with focus on economics, albeit in an unusual and unorthodox manner. Levitt is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. His idiosyncratic economic research into areas as varied as guns and game shows has invited criticism as well as praise from the readers. Dubner is a journalist, who first visited Levitt to interview him, but later formed a team to publish Levitt’s original works of special thoughts.

According to the author, economics is the science, or rather the art, of getting things done by monetary incentives. By this loose definition, Levitt has set aside for him a vast area of societal activity where none of peers had dared to take a peek. Some of the points he had analysed in this work are why the crime rate had fallen in the U.S. in the nineties, what do school teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common, how is the Ku-Klux-Klan like a group of real-estate agents, why do drug dealers still live with their moms, where have all the criminals gone and what makes a parent perfect? The crux of the argument puts him a different pedestal accessible and conducive to the hearts of the lay readers. For example, criminologists had put forward a number of reasons for the crime drop, the main one being police reforms. Levitt declines to accept the veracity of this point. In fact, the argument given by him is rather gruesome, but plausible. In the early 70s, there was a noted case, Roe vs Wade by which the Federal Supreme Court granted the right to abortion to the prospective mother in all American states. This naturally resulted in a spree of abortions. Levitt argues that a woman opts to abort a child to rescue herself and the child from a scenario in which the child is unwanted or the financial position is difficult or she might be a single parent to the child. All these three factors make up the breeding ground of criminals and by selectively removing them from society before they were born, the public at large has gained by reduction in the crime rate.

Levitt agrees that his arguments may not be ethical or not pleasing to the morals of collective conscience, and also that his finding should not be seen as either an endorsement of abortion or a call for intervention by the state in the fertility decisions of women. Crime might just as easily be curbed by providing better environments for those children at greatest risk for future crime! In the chapter on sumo wrestlers, the author concludes that what these behemoths and school teachers have in common is that they both cheat! The wrestlers knowingly lose games, if their positions are not jeopardised and the contestant’s fate hangs in the result of the game. In the case of teachers, they have a clear incentive to project good results for their class. To accomplish this, some of them resort to cheating by marking right answers for backward students. Levitt developed an algorithm to see through the mischief which identified some teachers as potential cheaters. The school organisation followed up through repeated testing and measuring the students’ onward progress. The algorithm was very accurate and did its job pretty well.

The book is easy to read, absorbing and original in outlook. The author has the ordinary reader in mind throughout the text. Some chapters, especially the one which ‘proves’ that your name (in the U.S., of course) somehow affects where you end up is unconvincing, though great research has gone into compiling the lists of most popular first names common among black and white children. His cavalier attitude to traditional methods of learning are deplorable though, like his assertion that he don’t know much of economics and his mathematical faculties claimed to be miserable for a person of his rank.

The book is highly recommened.

Rating: 3 Star