Customer Reviews
A well written, informative book. - By: L. Ferguson, 06 Sep 2008 
I picked this up because I wanted to know more about India & Pakistan in particular, not being very knowledgable on the subject. I bought it on a whim & I'm very glad I did.
On the positive: This is a brilliantly written work, the author is both a journalist & a novelist & it shows. The prose is fluid & a joy to read. Thge author is very well informed with regard to India. The chapters on Indian politics, Hindu nationalism & Bollywood are by turns funny, moving & informative. The author interviews many 'ordinary' people & low-level politicians, such that one gets a very real sense of how people live their lives & the everyday struggles they face. At it's best this book demystifies the 'Orient'. In particular, one comes to see that India is not some strange, foreign land, but a very real place, not nearly so different from the West as I had presumed in my ignorance. The author has a very good sense of both 'East' & 'West' & displays his knowledge with skill, to the benefit of the reader.
Negatives: Some of the chapters are perhaps a little too long, & such they tend to drag a little. Once the author leaves his native India, the chapters become a little unfocused. While still well written, they tend to meander & it's difficult to see what point he's trying to make. The chapter on Pakistan only briefly discusses that nation & instead focuses on Afghanistan, which is disappointing & confusing, as the following chapter is solely dedicated to Afghanistan. Also the chapter on Tibet seemed rather fleeting & shalllow, as though it were tacked on to fill up the rest of the book.
That said this book is well worth reading & very informative for someone who, like myself, doesn't have much knowledge 'India, Pakistan & Beyond'. It contains alll the historical & political facts one might wish to know about the countries involved, whilst never straying too far from how the various strands of history, politics, religion & ecomomics affect everyday people & their lives. A well written, informative & genuinely moving piece of work.
Hardly gets beneath the surface - By: Parvati P., 09 Jan 2008 
With such a plethora of books about `India Shining' I wondered whether Pankaj Mishra could come up with any new insights on the changes in that country. I had read his earlier book "Butter Chicken In Ludhiana" which, although flawed, provided a much-needed smalll-town view of India. But Butter Chicken was a travel book. His new book "Temptations of the West" seemed at first a much more ambitious work. The cover blurb leads us to believe it will be an analytical look, perhaps with deeper philosophical musing about the effects of India's modernisation on its people. It does not do this.
Mishra once again visits smalll-town India (eg. Benares, Allahabad) but he barely gets beneath the surface. His personal encounters with people appear banal & hardly shed light on their predicament or even hopes & fears in a changing India. Rather than using Benares as a mirror of what is going on in the smalll towns in the 21st century, Mishra never gets round to telling us why Benares is of particular interest, other than that he was once a student there.
Elsewhere Mishra strays into the political realm, but without the bite or insight of the many, many outstanding political columnists writing in India's newspapers or magazines. His second-hand views (he is unable to interview any RSS people directly) about the Hindu nationalists seem dated (views that were widely held before the BJP came to power) & do not tell us how the organisation changed once in government, or how other people's views of the RSS have changed. This is a mediocre attempt at political journalism.
The book is reallly a collection of essays which are not connected with each other. This would not matter if they were excellent in themselves. Unfortunately they come across as inadequately researched. They are reallly a collection of personal observations, which fail to excite us or enlighten us in the way that Mark Tully does with a similar mix of travel, personal observation (and it has to be said investigative journalism, which Mishra lacks completely).
Is India changing? Of course it is, but Mishra's book is not the one to tell us how or why. Read Tully instead.
What the news never tells us - By: SARAH MCCARTNEY, 20 Apr 2007 
I picked this book because I was looking for something to tell me about the way life is changing on the Indian sub-continent. I was expecting a report about economic success & increasing materialism. What I got was much a deeper, darker, far more interesting but worrying political & economic report surrounding tales of everyday life.
It's rare good fortune to stumble over a book that tells you things you never knew you didn't know; Pankaj Mishra explores & explains details about life in the East which are truly shocking to someone like me who thinks she's reasonably well-informed about world affairs. This book has entirely changed my views on India. We hear & read in the West about India's marvellous economic revolution & how we alll ought to be doing business with the forward thinking, intelligent people there. Who wants to know about alll the other people who aren't feeling the benefit, who are becoming poorer, deprived of even the basics for a bearable life, living in fear of violence?
This is a book about individuals' lives, people that Mishra helps us to understand & like or dislike, in whom we become fascinated. Educated people who can't even dream of finding a job, corrupt politicians & their dedicated counterparts, aspiring film stars, bereaved families. It's a book about people & their backgrounds, the political & economic backdrops against which their difficult lives are played out. I wonder what has happened to them?
I've been urging people to read this book, especiallly people who do business with India. This is not an easy nor a comfortable read, but it is a rewarding one.
