I had the honour of interviewing for TOI Bookmark, the legendary author Ken Follett on his latest novel Circle of Days. We did a video call. Here is the Spotify link. The YouTube link is also given below. The book is published by Hachette India.
‘Monumentally epic . . . a superb novel’ LEE CHILD
‘A tour de force’ PETER JAMES From the master of epic fiction comes the deeply human story of one of the world’s greatest mysteries: the building of Stonehenge.
A FLINT MINER WITH A GIFT
Seft, a talented flint miner, walks the Great Plain in the high summer heat, to witness the rituals that signal the start of a new year. He is there to trade his stone at the Midsummer Rite, and to find Neen, the girl he loves. Her family lives in prosperity and offers Seft an escape from his brutish father and brothers, within their herder community.
A PRIESTESS WHO BELIEVES THE IMPOSSIBLE
Joia, Neen’s sister, is a priestess with a vision and an unmatched ability to lead. As a child, she watches the Midsummer ceremony, enthralled, and dreams of a miraculous new monument, raised from the biggest stones in the world. But trouble is brewing among the hills and woodlands of the Great Plain.
A MONUMENT THAT WILL DEFINE A CIVILISATION
Joia’s vision of a great stone circle, assembled by the divided tribes of the Plain, will inspire Seft and become their life’s work. But as drought ravages the earth, mistrust grows between the herders, farmers and woodlanders – and an act of savage violence leads to open warfare . . .
Truly ambitious in scope, Circle of Days invites you to join master storyteller Ken Follett in exploring one of the greatest mysteries of our age: Stonehenge.
Ken Follett is one of the world’s best-loved authors. More than 198 million copies of the thirty-eight books he has written have been sold in over eighty countries and in forty languages.
He started his career as a reporter, first with his hometown newspaper, the South Wales Echo, and then with the London Evening News.
Ken’s first major success came with the publication of Eye of the Needle in 1978, which earned him the 1979 Edgar Award for Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of America.
In 1989, The Pillars of the Earth, Ken’s epic novel about the building of a medieval cathedral, reached number one on bestseller lists everywhere. It was turned into a major television series produced by Ridley Scott, which aired in 2010.
Ken has been active in numerous literacy charities and was president of Dyslexia Action for ten years. He is also a past chair of the National Year of Reading, a joint initiative between government and business. He lives in Hertfordshire, England, with his wife Barbara. Between them they have five children, six grandchildren and two Labradors.
No one had ever played tennis quite like Björn Borg. With his incredible athleticism, powerful shot-making and distinctive style, he became a sensation after he burst onto the scene aged just 15. As he ascended to the pinnacle of men’s tennis, Borg experienced unprecedented stardom and success that changed the game forever. Hailed as one of the most talented players to ever step onto a tennis court, Borg collected the game’s highest honours, including eleven Grand Slam titles – with five consecutive Wimbledon titles — establishing himself as one of the greatest of all time. Then he stunned the sporting world by announcing his retirement at the age of 26 and disappeared from tennis. After all these years of silence, Borg is ready to share everything. In this candid memoir, Borg takes us through all the major moments in his career, shares insights into his rivalry with John McEnroe — considered one of the best in the sport’s history — and their legendary 1980 Wimbledon final, and explains his shock retirement. Borg writes candidly about his personal life — for so long kept under wraps – including his childhood, his early stardom and his uncomfortable relationship with fame, alongside all the highs and lows of his unmatched career. For the first time, readers will get Borg’s own account of his career, his choices, and the experiences that shaped him as a person, from his childhood right up to today. This look behind the curtain at an enigmatic player who has fascinated generations of tennis fans, is ultimately a fascinating look at the making of sporting legend and, for readers who know nothing about tennis, a rare glimpse into an extraordinary, compelling life.
Read an extract from the book on Moneycontrol.
Björn Borg is a Swedish former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the world No. 1 in men’s singles for 109 weeks. Borg won 66 singles titles during his career, including 11 majors (six at the French Open and five consecutively at Wimbledon). A teenage sensation at the start of his career, Borg experienced unprecedented stardom and consistent success that helped propel the rising popularity of tennis during the 1970s. His rivalries with Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe became cultural touchstones beyond the world of tennis, with the latter rivalry peaking at the 1980 Wimbledon final, considered one of the greatest matches ever played. This is his first memoir.
I wrote a review article of Philippe Sands trilogy for Moneycontrol. It was published on 3 Dec 2025.
In 2010, barrister Philippe Sands was invited by the law faculty of a university in the city now known as Lviv, Ukraine, to deliver a public lecture on his work on crimes against humanity and genocide. Lemberg, Lviv, Lvov, and Lwów as it has been known through history are the same place. The name changed according to who commanded the city. It changed hands, no fewer than eight times in the years between 1914 and 1945. Sands had been asked to talk about the cases in which he had been involved, about his academic work on the Nuremberg trials, and about the trials consequences for the modern world. The Nuremberg trials which laid the groundwork for the human rights movement continues to fascinate Sands.
Philippe Sands KC is Professor of Law at University College London and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard. He is a practising barrister at 11 Kings Bench Walk (KBW), appears as counsel before the International Court of Justice and other international courts and tribunals and sits as an international arbitrator. He has written multiple books but it is his bestselling oral histories that are considered exceptional. These are: East West Street, The Ratline, and 38, Londres Street. Some of these have won awards such as the Baillie Gifford Prize 2016 for East West Street, The Ratline was converted into a BBC podcast series, and now 38 Londres Street has been optioned for a film by Felipe Gálvez with Marvel actor Sebastian Stan in the lead. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
East West Street is a fascinating investigative narrative about two prominent jurists of the Nuremberg trials — Hersch Lauterpacht and Raphael Lemkin. These international criminal trials held by France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States against leaders of the defeated Nazi Germany for plotting and carrying out invasions of several countries across Europe and committing atrocities against their citizens in the Second World War. Eighty years ago, on 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, the International Military Tribunal (IMT) tried 22 of the most important surviving leaders of Nazi Germany in the political, military, and economic spheres, as well as six German organizations. The purpose of the trials was not only to try the defendants but also to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi war crimes. Sands blends history with his memoir, his quest to discover the origins of his maternal family, particularly about his grandfather, Leon Buchholz, who never spoke about his past. This is a book about justice being delivered.
The Ratline is an investigation into unearthing the truth behind what happened to leading Nazi Baron Otto Gustav von Wächter who died in Rome in 1949. He was a high-ranking Nazi official, an SS officer who participated in the Final Solution extermination of Jews in Europe. During the occupation of Poland by the Germans, he was Governor of Krakow and responsible for the killing of Polish Jews. In The Ratline, Sands meets with Otto van Wächter’s son, Horst. The book is about them, Horst’s favourable stance of his antisemitic parents and engaging in many conversations with Sands over some years including giving him access to his mother, Charlotte Wächter’s papers. It is an extraordinary achievement given that Sands and Wächter did not shift from their stances but continued to maintain a dialogue. This is a book about trying to comprehend why a Nazi criminal escaped justice and why his son continues to be sympathetic for the evil his father unleashed.
38, Londres Street is the concluding part of the trilogy wherein Sands explores the question of another Nazi, Walther Rauff, and his close proximity to the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Rauff was the SS Commander who was responsible for the infamous Nazi mobile gas vans and later under the Pinochet regime, was associated with the equally dark “refrigerated trucks” that were linked to the disappearance of people who were vocal against the dictator. In this book, Sands in his trademark style, investigates, travels, and unearths evidence regarding this dark period of Chilean and Nazi Germany histories. But it is also Sands documentation of the impunity with which these criminals can get away with justice. Pinochet, for instance, who on medical grounds was granted pardon by the then British Home Secretary Jack Straw, returns to his homeland instead of being deported to Spain as had been requested and whose first act upon reaching the airport tarmac was to stand up from his wheelchair and walk!
These books designed to be standalone narratives, have inadvertently come to be referred as a “trilogy”. Presumably because the narrative arc governing these three texts is Sands preoccupation with impact of the Nuremberg trials on international justice. More significantly, how did the two definitions coined at this time — “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” — impact contemporary global politics. These are ideas that continue to haunt international law in the twenty-first century. In each book, he explores, questions, and investigates key figures such as Lauterpacht and Lemkin in East West Street, Horst von Wächter in The Ratline and Walther Rauff and Augusto Pinochet in 38 Londres Street. In the texts, Sands uses his legal expertise to present evidence about criminals, jurists, ordinary citizens who are affected by these horrific acts and the idea of justice. The latter is a complicated space to inhabit as Sands narrative determines. For example, justice is meted out to a Nazi criminal like Hans Frank in the Nuremberg trials. Yet, there are those who with impunity escape justice as in the case of Augusto Pinochet and his aide Walther Rauff. Or there are those who inhabit the grey space of not seeing any wrong in acts of genocide particularly in those individuals who perpetrated this. All this despite there being plenty of hard evidence to suggest that these people not only participated but orchestrated the extermination of others. For example, like Otto von Wächter, whose son, Horst von Wächter (Financial Times profile, 2013) who firmly believes that ‘I must find the good in my father. My father was a good man, a liberal who did his best. Others would have been worse’. This is quite unlike Niklas Frank, who when he accompanied Sands to courtroom 600 in Nuremberg, spoke gently and firmly. “This is a happy room, for me, and for the world”. In principle Niklas was against the death penalty but not when it came to his father. And yet, Niklas Frank is the one who introduced Sands to Horst von Wächter. Later, Sands accompanied these two sons of the senior Nazi war criminals as they travelled through Europe to confront the past sins of their fathers. It has been documented in the film called What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy (2015).
In the summer of 1998, Sands had been peripherally involved in the negotiations that led to the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), at a meeting in Rome, and a few months later he worked on the Pinochet case in London. The former president of Chile had claimed immunity from the English courts for charges of genocide and crimes against humanity laid against him by a Spanish prosecutor, and he had lost. In the years that followed, other cases requiring the courts of international justice, like from the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda soon landed on his desk in London. Others followed, relating to allegations in the Congo, Libya, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iran, Syria and Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Guantánamo, and Iraq. According to Sands, “The long and sad list reflected the failure of good intentions aired in Nuremberg’s courtroom 600.” He continues:
I became involved in several cases of mass killing. Some were argued as crimes against humanity, the killings of individuals on a large scale, and others gave rise to allegations of genocide, the destruction of groups. These two distinct crimes, with their different emphases on the individual and the group, grew side by side, yet over time genocide emerged in the eyes of many as the crime of crimes, a hierarchy that left a suggestion that the killing of large numbers of people as individuals was somehow less terrible. Occasionally, I would pick up hints about the origins and purposes of the two terms and the connection to arguments first made in courtroom 600. Yet I never inquired too deeply as to what had happened at Nuremberg. I knew how these new crimes had come into being, and how they subsequently developed, but little about the personal stories involved, or how they came to be argued in the case against Hans Frank. Nor did I know the personal circumstances in which Hersch Lauterpacht and Rafael Lemkin developed their distinct ideas.
On a map, Lviv is right in the centre of Europe. It stands at the midpoint of imaginary lines, connecting Riga to Athens, Prague to Kiev, Moscow to Venice. It is the epicentre of the fault lines that divided east from west, north from south. In those days, cities such as these, usually had two main streets, one that ran from north to south, the other from east to west. Lembergstrasse or East West Street in Lviv, is where Sands maternal grandfather Leon Buchholz and extended clan hailed from. Later, many of them, including Sands great-grandmother, lost their lives in the Nazi concentration camps. Leon, his wife, and their young daughter, fortunately managed to escape. Leon on a Polish passport and his wife on an Austrian passport.
East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and the Crimes Against Humanity is an intricately told story. It is packed with information, as Sands digs deeper and deeper into official and personal archives. Surprisingly, he gets ready access and converses regularly even with the descendants of the Nazis. For example, Niklas Frank, whose father, Hans Frank (“The Butcher of Warsaw”) was one of those on trial at Nuremberg and ultimately sentenced to death. To Philippe Sands amazement as he delved deep into research, it became clear that the Nuremberg jurists, his legal hero Hersch Lauterpacht and Raphael Lemkin, whose work was foundational to the discipline of international criminal law, were from the same city as Leon Buchholz. The lawyers coined and defined “genocide” and “crimes against humanity”. This is a thrilling fact for a barrister to discover; to personally be at the intersection of his legal interests and his family history. It allowed Sands to write an incredible memoir. He masterfully interweaves the biographies of Lauterpacht and Lemkin’s with his Jewish lineage. The result is as spy thriller writer, John le Carré called it: “A monumental achievement: profoundly personal, told with love, anger and great precision.”
In fact, there is this brilliant section (Chapter 119) wherein Sands analyses “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” — the fundamental principles of human rights in international law.
Lauterpacht’s draft made no reference to genocide, or to the Nazis, or Germans as a group, or crimes against Jews or Poles, or indeed crimes against any other groups. Lauterpacht set his back against group identity in the law, whether as victim or perpetrator. Why this approach? He never fully explained it, but it struck me as being connected to what he experienced in Lemberg, on the barricades, observing for himself how one group turned against another. Later he saw firsthand how the law’s desire to protect some groups—as reflected in the Polish Minorities Treaty—could create a sharp backlash. Poorly crafted laws could have unintended consequences, provoking the very wrongs they sought to prevent. I was instinctively sympathetic to Lauterpacht’s view, which was motivated by a desire to reinforce the protection of each individual, irrespective of which group he or she happened to belong to, to limit the potent force of tribalism, not reinforce it. By focusing on the individual, not the group, Lauterpacht wanted to diminish the force of intergroup conflict. It was a rational, enlightened view, and also an idealistic one.
The counterargument was put most strongly by Lemkin. Not opposed to individual rights, he nevertheless believed that an excessive focus on individuals was naive, that it ignored the reality of conflict and violence: individuals were targeted because they were members of a particular group, not because of their individual qualities. For Lemkin, the law must reflect true motive and real intent, the forces that explained why certain individuals —from certain targeted groups—were killed. For Lemkin, the focus on groups was the practical approach.
Despite their common origins, and the shared desire for an effective approach, Lauterpacht and Lemkin were sharply divided as to the solutions they proposed to a big question: How could the law help to prevent mass killing? Protect the individual, says Lauterpacht. Protect the group, says Lemkin.
Unsurprisingly as happens in many family histories, there are many twists and turns. Horst von Wächter’s only child, Magdalena, brought up as a firm Catholic, for many years believed her father’s account of her grandfather and sympathised. But recently married, she was trying to understand the family’s past. Then she heard Philippe Sands podcast series The Ratline(BBC, 2018) and wrote to him saying that she concluded that her grandparents “were very aware of what they did and somehow never regretted it”. It is a burdensome family heritage that she was trying to recover from. She complimented Sands on his podcast series and believed that he had portrayed her father Horst “fairly”. Walter Rauff’s grandson had a similar reaction upon reading 38 Londres Street and wrote to Sands appreciating his profile of his grandfather. There seem to have been no familial repercussions there but a rift has been created between Magdalena and Horst. After coming to terms with her family’s Nazi past, she wrote on her social media page, “My grandfather was a mass murderer”. Her father ordered her to remove it but she refused.
The three books are very similar in structure that they posit two individuals in a setting with Sands being very much in the centre of the action. It is almost as if the lines are blurred between the authorial narrator and the litigator. In every text, Sands presents evidence to the reader as he would be expected to present it in the court before the judges and jurors. This could be in the form of texts, personal correspondence, photographs, archival material, documents, or oral testimonies of the survivors and their descendants. Astonishingly, even though he establishes fairly early on in the trilogy that silence is an act of self-preservation amongst the victims/relatives of genocide such as in the case of his own grandfather; even so, he manages to exhibit immense patience and maintain a dialogue with the individuals he interviews. His professionalism can be gauged in the manner in which he continues his conversations even if he does not agree with the interlocutor as becomes obvious in his discussions with Horst von Wächter. He presents his arguments in his narration but leaves it sufficiently open for the reader to come to their own conclusions. It is in all likelihood a challenging balancing act to perform with the written word, but Sands brings his decades of expertise as a barrister to the words on the page. He does tend to explore background details in excruciating minutiae and insists on placing them within the main narrative, but once the reader familiarises themselves with his writing style, it becomes easier and easier to read. It is almost like reading a thriller. It is impossible to put the books down despite the terrifying details that emerge. It is the truth.
The trilogy tackles subjects that are full of alarmingly violent details that were perpetrated by individuals who firmly believed in their acts. For instance, Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, privately told the US army psychologist Dr. Gilbert at the Nuremberg trials that the dominant attitude at Auschwitz was of total indifference. Any other sentiment “never even occurred to us”. This attitude is apparent in all the Nazis profiled in these books. It is immaterial that Sands is discussing facts from the past as disconcertingly these continue to have ramifications upon the present, in the twenty-first century. Most obviously being that of international law debating on “genocide” and “crimes against humanity”. So, despite 38 Londres Street concluding with an ambiguity that is frustrating, at least in the previous two books — East West Street and The Ratline — the younger generation, Niklas Frank and Magdalena provide hope by acknowledging and rejecting the criminal acts perpetrated by their forbears.
It is magnificent research and methodology that are on display. These compactly told narratives will appeal to younger generations of readers as they wish to know more about these despicable moments in history. More so, for the grey areas that exist in bringing the criminals to justice or for that matter how are these stories inherited, preserved — in memory, family histories, and archives.
Given the short lifespan of books, these bestselling oral histories by Philippe Sands will stand the test of time and sell. They are a must read.
Economica: A global history of women, wealth and power by Dr. Victoria Bateman charts the course of women’s contribution to their national economy and acknowledges work done as being within and without the house too. Quite contrary to what Adam Smith believed that only paid work outside the home was construed as a contribution to the economy. Whereas Dr Bateman shows through empirical evidence marshalled from as far as the Stone Age to the present, the AI age, that women’s contribution, paid or unpaid was an essential part of the economy. Her book is packed with facts, anecdotes, histories, archaeological evidence, data sets etc. For instance, marriage contracts signed between the 11C and 15C included a clause wherein the woman could state she had the right to work after marriage. There are so many bits and pieces of information to share but the most enlightening was her use of the word “overlooked”. To use it constantly in the context of new evidence that confirmed the value of a woman’s work in the past is very empowering use of a simple word. It gives the reader the opportunity to reflect upon situations that they themselves may have been, where their evidence and work is overlooked whereas they are on the right path. It is new evidence so others cannot see it, recognise it, value it, or understand it. Developing faith in oneself and growing from there is what this book helps to achieve. It is not just a revisiting of inherited economic history narratives.
Humanity’s journey from poverty to prosperity is filled with men who have become household names. But how many female entrepreneurs, merchants and industrialists can you name?
Economica places women at the centre of the story of economic growth. Starting in the Stone Age and continuing to the present day, it takes the reader through the key economic milestones of the past twelve millennia — from the birth of farming to the advent of computing — all told through the experiences of women as well as men.
Historian Victoria Bateman weaves a thrilling, globe-spanning narrative that proves women weren’t ‘missing’ from economic life, they were merely hidden from view. We discover the female workers who helped to build the Great Pyramid of Giza, and to plumb the city of ancient Rome; the silk weavers who made a vital contribution to the development of the Silk Road and global trade; the women who dominated London’s brewing trade during medieval times; and the brave twentieth-century pioneers who fought to make our economies not just richer but fairer.
Dr Bateman is an economic historian, author and historical consultant. Her latest book, Economica: A Global History of Women, Wealth and Power, is the first major economic history of the world to be told from the perspective of female wealth creators.
Victoria has twenty years of experience teaching macroeconomics and economic history at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, including as Director of Studies in Economics at Gonville and Caius College. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is currently a visiting academic at Gresham College, London. Victoria has spoken extensively on radio and television, providing historical context for current events, including as resident economic historian for BBC Radio 4’s “Understand: the economy”. In addition to her writing and speaking, Victoria also works as a historical consultant for period dramas on TV and screen. Victoria is passionate about communicating economic history and believes in using our knowledge of the past to inform the present and to build a better future.
Victoria has been profiled by The Times, has written for the Guardian, The Telegraph and Bloomberg, and has appeared on numerous occasions on the BBC and ITV. Her previous books include the acclaimed Naked Feminism: Breaking the Cult of Female Modesty (2023) and The Sex Factor: How Women Made the West Rich (2019). In her spare time, you can find Victoria enjoying tea and cake after a walk in the countryside.
A groundbreaking book about how to harness the power of collaboration and work most effectively in groups – coauthored by Getting Things Done‘s David Allen. It is published by Hachette India.
When Getting Things Done was published in 2001, it was a game-changer. By revealing the principles of healthy high performance at an individual level, it transformed the experience of work and leisure for millions. Twenty years later, it has become clear that the best way to build on that success is at the team level, and one of the most frequently asked questions by dedicated GTD users is how to get an entire team onboard.
By building on the effectiveness of what GTD does for individuals, Team will offer a better way of working in an organisation, while simultaneously nourishing a culture that allows individuals’ skills to flourish. Using case studies from some of the world’s most successful companies, Team shows how the principles of team productivity improve communication, enable effective execution and reduce stress on team members. These principles are increasingly important in the post-pandemic workplace, where the very nature of how people work together has changed so dramatically.
Team is the most significant addition to the GTD canon since the original, and in offering a roadmap for building a culture of sustainable high performance, will be welcomed by readers working in any sized group or organisation.
In Getting Things Done, David Allen revolutionised individual productivity – and now, he and Edward Lamont show us how to transform teams and organisations. This is a masterful guide for any team striving to navigate the complexities of collaboration in today’s fast-paced world — Dorie Clark, bestselling author of The Long Game and executive education faculty, Columbia Business School
Ed Lamont and David Allen have captured the best practices for working with people to produce the best possible results. Team is a no-nonsense manual for doing just that, no matter what your goal is or who you’re working with to achieve it. If you’re invested in making good things happen, and need others to assist, this is a must-read — Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global
The world needs this book . . .This is not a book to read once, and extract a few ideas. Team is a guidebook, outlining the step-by-step process to team effectiveness. My advice is that you keep this book on your desk. Use it and re-use it, until Team structures your day-to-day activity as a team . . .and get amazing things done, together — Tony Crabbe, business psychologist, author of Busy
If you regularly get things done with others, here’s your new productivity bible. In Team, David and Edward masterfully break down how the principles of GTD work for all team settings – whether you have a corporate, sports or family team. At its best, working in a team feels effortless. This book helps get you to this magical place, so you can accomplish more with others while actually enjoying the process — Chris Bailey, international bestselling author of Hyperfocus, The Productivity Project, and How to Calm Your Mind
David Allen is an international best-selling author who is widely recognized as the world’s leading expert on personal and organizational productivity. Time Magazine called his flagship book, Getting Things Done “the definitive business self-help book of the decade”.
Edward Lamont is co-founder and Senior Partner of Next Action Associates, the GTD partner for the UK and Ireland. He has over 25 years of experience in executive coaching, training and consulting in the areas of leadership, productivity, and motivation. Since 2009, he has founded and grown the most successful GTD franchises worldwide by using the principles in this book. Before moving into consulting, he worked covering commodities markets, and was a freelancer for the Financial Times.
Economica: A global history of women, wealth and power by Dr. Victoria Bateman charts the course of women’s contribution to their national economy and acknowledges work done as being within and without the house too. Quite contrary to what Adam Smith believed that only paid work outside the home was construed as a contribution to the economy. Whereas Dr Bateman shows through empirical evidence marshalled from as far as the Stone Age to the present, the AI age, that women’s contribution, paid or unpaid was an essential part of the economy. Her book is packed with facts, anecdotes, histories, archaeological evidence, data sets etc. For instance, marriage contracts signed between the 11C and 15C included a clause wherein the woman could state she had the right to work after marriage. There are so many bits and pieces of information to share but the most enlightening was her use of the word “overlooked”. To use it constantly in the context of new evidence that confirmed the value of a woman’s work in the past is very empowering use of a simple word. It gives the reader the opportunity to reflect upon situations that they themselves may have been, where their evidence and work is overlooked whereas they are on the right path. It is new evidence so others cannot see it, recognise it, value it, or understand it. Developing faith in oneself and growing from there is what this book helps to achieve. It is not just a revisiting of inherited economic history narratives.
Here are two snippets from the book:
p. 218-9 Mary Wollstonecraft and morality
Wollstonecraft’s family’s attempts to climb the social ladder framed how she saw the world: through the lens of the section of society that lived a life somewhere between aristocrats and ordinary people. She witnessed the way in which this newly expanding class attempted to distinguish themselves from ordinary people through not only money but also morality. And how, by developing what she called this ‘insipid decency’, they could judge themselves to be ‘better’ than the libertine aristocracy. This middle-class monopoly on morality had particularly implications for women, who were expected to be the virginal angels who set a good example to other women in society. By trumpeting the virtues of female purity, the middle classes wanted to ensure that working-class girls, despite their freedom to earn, would not be able to compete with middle-class daughters when it came to attracting the wealthiest husbands. By shrouding the paid labour of women in moral shame, this purity culture risked devaluing the contribution that countless ordinary women were making to the economy, while turning middle-class women into highly-valued, ‘precious’ commodities. Since work for middle-class women was considered nothing more than a stop-gap and could not be allowed to jeopardise their marriage prospect by causing their marriage prospects by causing their virginity to be treated as suspect, ‘decency’ came at the cost of women’s dependence on men. Indeed, the very ability of the middle classes to claim the moral high ground depended on the fact that preserving a young woman’s bodily modesty – ensuring that she was untouched by men – came at a price not only to her but also to her family, who had to ensure that she was chaperoned at all times, was taught separately to boys, and did not have to work alongside men to support herself financially. It was a cost that better-off families were able to bear, but one that working-class families, be design, found unaffordable. Morality, in other words, cost money. And Wollstonecraft had little time for it.
Another one from the book:
I had the good fortune of speaking with Dr Bateman for TOI Bookmark. As soon as the link is released, I will upload it here as well.
Teenagers at the best of times have a lot going on inside them and around them that their head is in a whirl. Mostly it is the academic schedule and the neverending to-dos coupled with the realisation that they are on the cusp of adulthood. The amount of silent and explicit pressures on kids is astonishing; more so in this speed age. Anyway, one of the most striking dips that happens in a growing child’s lifecycle is their reading for leisure. It more often than not comes to a grinding halt. The kids struggle to finish their academic assignments and pack in more in a day than an adult’s normal working day. Sometimes, as parents, we have to teach the kids to stop and breathe. Pause. Take time out. Otherwise this mad mad race to achieve will get the better of them. Best prescription to find peace and almost get into a meditative state of being is reading.
My fifteen-year-old, Sarah Rose, published her first illustrated book about Komodo dragons when she was ten. Last year, she wrote a twenty-thousand-word manuscript on retelling ancient Egyptian myths. She tested them on her friends and though they knew nix about the myths, they loved the stories. They were also funny. Unfortunately, publishers have rejected her mss saying that they are no takers for it in the Indian book market. Anyway, she has always loved reading encyclopaedias and well written books. When she finds something she likes, she devours it. The moment she discovered Bonnie Garmus’s debut novel was stupendous.
This past year has been a little busy for Sarah particularly her Grade 10 exams that left her feeling a little zapped. Plus, a few other factors beyond her control that made reading a trying task. But now she has brought herself back to an even keel. Currently, she is on a long break and browsing through the books in my study, spotted Chris Whitaker’s All the Colours of the Dark. She sat up till late at night and finished the book in four days. It would have been sooner if she had had nothing else to do. But alas! Homework beckons. With this the kid has most certainly found her reading mojo.
She has dog eared the pages. She has scribbled in the margins. Underlined sentences. Circled passages. Drawn emoticons. Made exclamation marks. And more. In short, she has thoroughly enjoyed reading the story. She has loved the way the author constructed his sentences. The short chapters. The pacy story. Oh, there is so much more. I wish I had recorded her running commentary with the text as she read it along.
No wonder Chris Whitaker has sold more than 1 million copies of this book. Its success is understandable.
I had been wanting to get her back to reading as it is a skill that will stand her in good stead throughout her life. Years ago, I had heard a BBC Radio programme of encouraging literacy in schools that had children of various backgrounds as well as a conversation with teachers of adult neo-literates. A striking experiment that was discussed and has stayed with me over decades is that to build confidence in readers, share with them detective stories, thrillers, mysteries etc. The pace of storytelling coupled with simple sentences, short chapters, and a balance between dialogue and description helps a reader overcome their inhibitions and gain strength in the written word and language. It is also easier for them to speak the words out aloud if required. Sarah has no problems with the written or spoken word. In fact, she is very free. But the dreariness of schoolteachers who have no love for the language nor do they read beyond the prescribed texts nor are willing to admit their mistakes can absolutely crush the joy of existence from a munchkin. So to witness Sarah blossom with happiness at discovering that there are others like her who love language and play with it as she likes to, it is best form of validation.
Fingers crossed that Sarah has found her ability to read. For now, she has done the classic reader like trait of finishing one book and selecting a new one immediately. She is immersed in Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis. As far as I can see, this book too is being treated in the same manner as Chris Whitaker’s. It is fine.
From banyan trees to electronic screens – the authoritative account of India’s stock market over two centuries. For millions of people, the stock market is the canvas on which are sketched fantasies of riches, of lives transformed. Yet, the history and methods of one of modern India’s most transformative forces remain underexplored till now.
Starting from the early nineteenth century, when a few banias traded shares under banyan trees, to the Cotton and Share Mania occasioned by the American Civil War, to the decades of marking time during the Nehruvian Era, to 1991’s great unshackling that made the market accessible to the public, all the way to the market cycles of the new millennium, Running behind Lakshmi brings India’s stock market into focus. It has been published by John Murray / Hachette India.
By combining archival sources with observations and expertise forged through immersion in the markets, Adil Rustomjee provides a wide-ranging account that is equal parts analytical history, financial practice, and market lore. Brimming with pioneers and adventurers, grand rivalries and petty jealousies, scams and scandals, this is the story of a nation and a people told through a lens that’s never been used, but is more relevant than ever.
After a career in international development and markets, Adil Rustomjee discovered his life’s work as a chronicler of India’s stock markets. The idea for the book came when he stumbled upon the BSE archives during the time he had an office in the exchange’s building. These nuggets of history were just lying around, but a substantial account had yet to be written about an equity market that was over two centuries old.
A provocative new vision of how our world really works – and why chance determines everything.
In Fluke, myth-shattering social scientist Brian Klaas deep-dives into the phenomenon of randomness, unpicking our neat and tidy storybook version of events to reveal a reality far wilder and more fascinating than we have dared to consider. The bewildering truth is that but for a few incidental changes, our lives – and our societies – would be radically different.
Offering an entirely new perspective, Fluke explores how our world really works, driven by strange interactions and random events. How much difference does our decision to hit the snooze button make? Did one couple’s vacation really change the course of the twentieth century? What are the smallest accidents that have tilted the course of history itself?
The mind-bending lessons of this phenomenon challenge our beliefs about the very workings of the world. From the evolution of human biology and natural disasters to the impact of global events on supply chain disruptions, every detail matters because of the web of connectivity that envelops us. So what if, by exploding our illusion of control, we can make better decisions and live happy, fulfilling lives?
Brian Klaas grew up in Minnesota, earned his DPhil at Oxford, and is now a professor of global politics at University College London. He is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, host of the award-winning Power Corrupts podcast, and frequent guest on national television. Klaas has conducted field research across the globe and advised major politicians and organizations including NATO and the European Union. Klaas also writes a newsletter called The Garden of Forking Paths.
This book came in the post today. Flipping through it, there is a lot of history and plenty of technical jargon, but it is obvious that it has been written by someone very passionate about the subject + excited about delving into the archives. Truly look forward to reading this.
Book blurb
From banyan trees to electronic screens – the authoritative account of India’s stock market over two centuries.
For millions of people, the stock market is the canvas on which are sketched fantasies of riches, of lives transformed. Yet, the history and methods of one of modern India’s most transformative forces remain underexplored till now.
Starting from the early nineteenth century, when a few banias traded shares under banyan trees, to the Cotton and Share Mania occasioned by the American Civil War, to the decades of marking time during the Nehruvian Era, to 1991’s great unshackling that made the market accessible to the public, all the way to the market cycles of the new millennium, Running behind Lakshmi ( John Murray/Hachette India) brings India’s stock market into focus.
By combining archival sources with observations and expertise forged through immersion in the markets, Adil Rustomjee provides a wide-ranging account that is equal parts analytical history, financial practice, and market lore. Brimming with pioneers and adventurers, grand rivalries and petty jealousies, scams and scandals, this is the story of a nation and a people told through a lens that’s never been used, but is more relevant than ever.
After a career in international development and markets, Adil Rustomjee discovered his life’s work as a chronicler of India’s stock markets.
The idea for the book came when he stumbled upon the BSE archives during the time he had an office in the exchange’s building. These nuggets of history were just lying around, but a substantial account had yet to be written about an equity market that was over two centuries old.
Adil Rustomjee then made it his calling to narrate the market’s past, outline its methods, and detail its participants. Born in Hyderabad, he attended the universities of Madras and Bombay, from which he graduated with degrees in commerce and management. He also holds graduate degrees in international relations from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and in business from Yale.
Besides taking a keen interest in financial markets, he is a student of military history and strategy.
