Engaging engagement
A. J. Philip
Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb
by Strobe Talbott. Penguin/Viking. Pages 268. Rs 395.
THROUGHOUT the "dialogue" that American diplomat Strobe Talbott had with Indian Minister Jaswant Singh, speculation reigned about the subject of their discussions and where it would ultimately lead the two nations to. It is a tribute to their hide-and-seek skills that even when "they met 14 times at 10 locations in seven countries on three continents," journalists on the beat barely got anything on their deliberations.

A room of one’s own
Rumina Sethi
Shakti: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Women's Empowerment in India
edited by Ranjana Harish and Bharathi Harishankar. Rawat, Jaipur and New Delhi. Pages 327. Rs 595.
Academic feminism has produced so much "theory" by now that one sometimes begins to feel a detachment with the world of real events. The anxiety about the widening gap has resulted in a virtual library of feminist texts, one of which is the book under review containing a collection of papers locating the politics of female empowerment.

Sharp edge of progressivism
Jaswant Singh
One Yesterday
edited by Saif Hyder Hasan. Rupa and Co., New Delhi. Pages 179. Rs 395.
Twelve famous names, seven from the world of letters and five from the silver screen, form the subject matter of this book. Some of them can, of course, be counted in both categories with equal merit. From the world of literature, we have Ali Sardar Jafri, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Harivanshrai Bachchan, Ismat Chugtai, Kaifi Azmi, Krishan Chander and Mohan Rakesh.

Pictures of optimism
Kanwalpreet
Leaders Who Changed the World
by James MacGregor Burns. Penguin, Viking. Pages 319. Rs 495.
A book, nay, an encomium to the leaders whose leadership has transformed the world, this is a work of research in an area which hasn’t yet been fully studied—leadership. Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner, this book is another elaborate offering showing how "great leaders emerge from being ordinary transactional deal makers to become agents of major social change who empower their followers."

Trust as a capital asset
S. P. Sharma
Investigating Social Capital: Comparative Perspective on Civil Society, Participation and Governance
edited by Sanjeev Prakash, Per Selle. Pages 315. Rs 550.
Social capital is generally understood to mean the social structures and networks necessary for sustaining collective action which enables meaningful engagement of civil society with elected governments resulting in positive outcomes and is also seen to be an important factor contributing to the higher achievements and progress of western societies as compared to the rest of the world.

Riveting murder mystery
Manju Jaidka
The Village of Widows
by Ravi Shankar Etteth. Penguin India. Pages 355. Rs. 295.
THUS begins a tale of violence, sex, and political intrigue. Ravi Shankar Etteth’s The Village of Widows has all the ingredients of a popular crime thriller: a murder, its investigation, clues, red herrings, a search for the criminal, some more murders, more intrigue, digressions, circumlocutions, and a cliff-hanging sequence of events before the mystery is finally unravelled.

hindi review
The other half
Harbans Singh
Stree: Upekshita
by Simone De Beauvoir. Presented by Dr Prabha Khaitan. Hind Pocket Books. Pages 392. Rs 125.
IT has taken an inordinately long time to come in paperback in Hindi but the wait has been worthwhile for the readers. It would be an understatement to say that Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, ever since its publication in French in 1949 and English translation in 1953, has captivated the imagination of only the women.

short takes
Making sense of economics
 Randeep Wadehra
Economic Development of Haryana
by Mandeep Singh & Harvinder Kaur. Deep & Deep, N. Delhi. Pages 224. Rs 350.
WITH just 1.37 per cent of the total geographical area and 2 per cent of the population, Haryana is certainly a small state; and, going by its per capita income, a prosperous one. But that’s where the happy story ends. True, perceptible progress has been made in the fields of infrastructure development, education etc, but the overall picture is dismal.

Hemingway uncovered
A newly discovered story by the 20th-century literary giant Ernest Hemingway will be auctioned at Christie’s in New York in December, with the proviso that it not be published — at least for now. The comic manuscript, together with a signed letter, were written in 1924 when the future Nobel Laureate was 25, shortly before publication of his first important work, the short story collection In Our Time.

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