The Cost of Living (Modern Library Paperbacks)
und über 1 Million weitere Bücher verfügbar für Amazon Kindle .
Erfahren Sie mehr
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Produktinformation
Möchten Sie die Produktinformationen aktualisieren oder Feedback zu den Produktabbildungen geben?
Ist der Verkauf dieses Produkts für Sie nicht akzeptabel? |
Mehr über den Autor
Entdecken Sie Bücher, lesen Sie über Autoren und mehr
› Besuchen Sie die Seite von Arundhati Roy auf Amazon
› Besuchen Sie die Seite von Arundhati Roy auf Amazon
Produktbeschreibungen
From Kirkus Reviews
In her first non-fiction work, award winning novelist Roy (The God of Small Things, 1997) reveals the authoritarian paternalism of the Indian state that lies behind a mask of benevolence. To Roy, India with all its fissures and factions is a fictitious nation created by the state to legitimate itself. Once the fiction is in place, the state can justify its actions in the name of the common good no matter how injurious these actions may be in reality. So it is with Indias undertaking of massive dam and irrigation projects and its successful detonation of a nuclear bomb, the subjects respectively of the two essays in this volume. The second essay offers the bomb as an example of state arrogance and foolishness whose potential consequences are obvious and terrible. In the first essay, which will likely be more revelatory to American audiences, Roy focuses her attention on the Naramada valley, home to 325,000 people, mostly of minority tribes. When the building of a series of huge dams is completed the valley will flood and all will lose their homes, becoming, in a bloodless acronym, PAPs: Project Affected Persons. A whole way of life will end as PAPs are relocated to dismal camps or end up in urban slums. Roy clearly and bitingly demonstrates, however, that it is not at all clear the project will do what it is supposed to. It may use more electricity than it generates or destroy more farmland than it creates, and those who are to receive drinking water may never have a drop reach them. The Indian state goes on its haughty way, blithely dismissing all doubts. Yet the people of the Naramada valley have organized and resisted, and though the outcome is unclear, this resistance is what inspires Roy. This resistance, not the state, is the home of Indian democracy, and she urges the struggle to continue (royalties from the book are going to the organization heading this struggle). With eloquent anger and careful research, Roy expertly captures the faces of both folly and courage. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
From Library Journal
The phenomenal success of Roy's Booker Prize winning first novel The God of Small Things (LJ 4/15/97) has metamorphosed her into an activist supporting unpopular causes. This book consists of two parts: "The Greater Common Good" attacks the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river in western India, while "The End of Imagination" denounces India's nuclear tests in May 1998. The Save the Narmada movement, a grass-roots, anti-dam movement that has been agitating for over a decade, believes that instead of being a solution to India's water and power shortages, the still-incomplete dam will cause immense distress owing to the displacement of 40 million people, the submergence of 245 villages, inequities in resettlement, and environmental disasters. Roy's polemical tract on their behalf, while not a dispassionate inquiry, raises some important questions about the real price of "development," whether in the form of big dams or bombs. For public and academic libraries.ARavi Shenoy, Hinsdale P.L., IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
In diesem Buch
(Mehr dazu)
Tags(Was ist das?)Bei einem Tag handelt es sich um ein Schlagwort, das zum Produkt passt.
Tags erleichtern allen Kunden die Suche und die Sortierung ihrer Lieblingsprodukte. |
Kundenrezensionen
Die hilfreichsten Kundenrezensionen
Format:Taschenbuch
Arundati Roy turns from fiction, momentarily, we hope, to non-fiction.
That is not to say that 'The Cost of Living' lacks power of imagination. The book consists of two short essays that centre on two very problematic situations in the current India- and they are issues worth writing about.
The essay that most enthralled me (much to do with it being in the news a lot) was the essay which dealt with India's nuclear testing, and the tension it has created not only in the region, but in the world. She investigates the Wests' hypocrisy- do they have a right to lambast the Indians, when they themselves have done the same thing- the exact same thing? It is very interesting.
Like the great novelist she is, Roy writes with compassion, an intense focus, and is very articulate. It is worth reading this book even if you have no interest in Indian politics, because it is a matter of life and death, hypocrisy, possible armageddon and the hole that humankind insists on digging itself into.
Strongly reccommended.
Format:Taschenbuch
I found Roy's essays fascinating, but the first, on India's massive dam projects, interested me the most. By the MOST conservative estimates, 33 million people have been displaced by these projects since partition in the late 1940's. It is difficult for a Westerner to grasp the magnitude of this problem. Think about the populations of New York and California, for example, and then we can begin to understand it.
Format:Taschenbuch
This is the one of the most beautiful stories I have read. A. Roy paints a picture of rural India which is tragic, yet beautiful. This book had made me thirsty for more. I highly recommend this it.
Möchten Sie weitere Rezensionen zu diesem Artikel anzeigen?
Waren diese Rezensionen hilfreich?
Wir wollen von Ihnen hören.
Die neuesten Kundenrezensionen
A Must Read for privileged Indian-Americans!
Not a book that would wow the reader with eloquence, but a passionate and serious account of two examples of the folly of massive state-sponsored projects "for the people's... Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 28. Januar 2000 von SKC
Very naive
Arundhati Roy's essays present a simplistic view of the issues involved in development and in defence. (You need to invest on security, India has some very dangerous neighbors. Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 3. Dezember 1999 von Subhash Kak
A challenge to lethargy and non-committal objectivity
Compelling, and powerfully written. The author equates big dams and nuclear bombs, showing both to be agents of mass destruction by the Indian government - and, by implication,... Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 31. Oktober 1999 von John McAndrew
Informative as well as eloquently writtten
Roy uses her beautiful writing to explain the destruction done by nuclear bomb testing and dam building in India. Highly recommended!!
Veröffentlicht am 11. Oktober 1999 von Brittney Turner (britty425@go.com)
Kunden diskutieren
|
Das Forum zu diesem Produkt
Fragen stellen, Meinungen austauschen, Einblicke gewinnen Aktive Diskussionen in ähnlichen Foren
Kundendiskussionen durchsuchen
|
Ähnliche Foren
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Lieblingslisten
Ähnliche Artikel finden
- Fremdsprachige Bücher > Business, Karriere & Geld > Wirtschaftswissenschaften > Wirtschaftsbedingungen
- Fremdsprachige Bücher > Geschichte > Asien > Indien
- Fremdsprachige Bücher > Recht > Perspektiven
- Fremdsprachige Bücher > Sachbücher > Politik
- Fremdsprachige Bücher > Sachbücher > Regierung
- Fremdsprachige Bücher > Sachbücher > Sozialwissenschaften > Politikwissenschaften
Anhand des Sachgebietes nach ähnlichen Produkten suchen:
Ihr Kommentar
Möchten Sie die Produktinformationen aktualisieren oder Feedback zu den Produktabbildungen geben?
