Early Indians: Joining the dots and burying the myths

Tony Joseph debunks the myth of India being the homeland of the Aryans and offers a scientific chronicle

Elephanta caves: Re-carving the old magic

Working for over eight months at a stretch, the Wadars tibals arrive at Elephanta Island to recreate the old magic of the caves by breaking …

Beyond DNA

Maurizio Meloni's book is a fascinating social and political history of human heredity spanning over 150 years

A sniff to save

It can detect a person buried under six metres of snow. Pervez Cama, who travelled to the Swiss Alps, traces the history of St Bernard, a dog …

Is information knowledge?

Book>> The Information, A History, A Theory, A Flood • by James Gleick • Fourth Estate • Rs 599

A lead from the past

Evidence trawled from lake sediments in Sweden traces atmospheric lead pollution back to more than 2 millennia

BBC dreams about the machine

Two BBC serials take the viewer to the awesome world of computers, dramatising their history, and showing how they have become an integral part …

Filling in the historical gap on forestry

History of Forestry in India Edited by Ajay Rawat Publisher: Indus Publishing Company, New Delhi, 1991 Price: Rs 350

Two important years in the hee of Charles Darwin

The Correspondence of Charles Darwin - Volume 7 (1858-1859) Edited by Frederick Burkhardt and Sydney Smith Publisher: Cambridge University …

Bharat ki Chaap gets a new identity

The TV serial of the late 1980s is now available as a video series. Although its message of self-reliance is a bit dated, it still is a useful …

Two academics traces India's green history

This Fissured Land Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha Publisher: Oxford University Press, New Delhi Price: Rs 290

The famine syndrome

THE DEMOGRAPHY OF FAMINES: AN INDIAN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE·Arup Maharatna· Oxford University Press· 1996·Price Rs 545

Pre-history revisited

The discovery of fossil tracks in Madhya Pradesh by an Indian scientist may turn back life's clock by 500 million years

One big family

As we peek into our past, the number of our ancestors seems to double in every generation. For every human being has two parents, four …

Centuries before Americas hosted sophisticated agrarian civilisations

Book >> 1491, New Revelations Of The Americas Before Columbus by Charles C Mann Vintage Books 2006

Mint tales

Book>> The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of the World By Niall Ferguson, Allen Lane London 2008 Price Rs 595

The track lover

Book>> Blood, Iron and Gold • by Christian Wolmar • Transatlantic Books • Rs 90

Bead's eye view

Glass beads reveal ancient Indian Ocean trade networks

Grains of culture

Why China lost out to Europe in industrialisation

America’s frozen aid

A commodity from their former colony kept the English cool in 19th century India

Kremlin on Tartar sweet

Sweet cruelty

Sugar plantations were run by African slaves who were tortured, but they also revolted against their masters

Temples of doom

The Mayans penchant for building places of worship brought their downfall

The Ice Story

Amit Shanker talks about a random photograph that helped him reveal how Americans kept British cool.

A web around the corrupt

Website>> Politics ÔÇó Kenya