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Title: Great Hedge of India : The Search for the Living Barrier That Divided a Nation by Roy Moxham ISBN: 0-7867-0840-9 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: 27 April, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.92 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: History is Made
Comment: If you haven't heard of the Great Hedge of India, don't be surprised. Roy Moxham spent his every holiday in India, and thought he knew something of the nation, but when he came across an old book that mentioned the hedge, he had never heard of it. He found more references to it, did all the research he could, and then went on a quest to find it. _The Great Hedge of India: The Search for the Living Barrier that Divided a People_ (Carroll and Graf) is the delightful story of that quest. Moxham had the idea in the beginning that he was searching for a quintessentially British folly, but learned in his researches that it was a far-from-harmless monstrosity, "a terrible instrument of British oppression." He gives us the history of salt and of the salt tax, as well as salt physiology, and it's role in the deaths of millions in the last century. The salt tax and the hedge played a role in that sad story.
Fortunately, while Moxham has to fill us in on such history (and the history of the comparable French tax on salt), he also has the much more pleasant task of telling us about his researches and his travels. We get to learn about his finding period maps, how difficult they were to read, and how he came to use the Global positioning System on his hunt. But the cheeriest parts of the story have to do with his visits with friends and strangers in India. He is able to describe with good humor the frustration of travel by motorized rickshaw, inexplicably efficient or inefficient trains, and pedestrian searches in the heat and dust of the Indian plains. His Indian friends were unflaggingly helpful. The strangers he met were almost always interested in his quest, although intensive farming and road building have wiped out almost all the traces of the hedge, and the community memory of it is almost entirely obliterated, too. They supported him when all seemed lost. This is fine travel writing.
Moxham succeeded in his quest to find some remnant of the hedge, but more importantly, he has made history by rescuing it from obscurity. The hedge was an amazing physical achievement, but perhaps because its purpose was so ignominious people preserved little record of it. Anyone reading this fascinating book, however, will be impressed by the quest for the hedge, and that its history has not been lost.
Rating: 4
Summary: Fascinating!
Comment: This book was loaned to me by a friend. It's not the sort of thing I normally read but the idea that there was a modern "wonder of the world" that I had never even heard of intrigued me. Perhaps because I'm not a student of India or of the history of British rule in India I found it fascinating. The author tells 2 stories here - one is the history of the cruel Salt Tax imposed by the East India Company and the other is the story of his attempt to find a remnant of the Great Hedge which was planted in the 1800's as a barrier to prevent salt smuggling.
For a non-historian like me this was a perfect glimpse into Indian history, including some discussion of Gandhi. I also enjoyed reading about the author's travels in India as he searched for the hedge. Everywhere he went he ran into friendly people who welcomed him into their homes, shared tea with him and tried to help him. His descriptions of the countryside and culture really gave some insight into the daily lives of the people there. One of my favorite passages talked about his visit to the Amareshwara Temple in Omkareshwar and a ceremony that has been performed by priests there every day since 1795 in honor of Rani Ahilya Bai. I recommend this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Entertaining and informative at every level
Comment: The book is the story of an Englishman's chance discovery (actually rediscovery) of the construction of a barrier comparable to the Great Wall of China. The authors story of the search is an interesting part of the story, but the historical investigation of the barrier, the motivation behind it, the details n the effects of salt deprivation, the comparative analysis of salt taxation in Europe and China, all combine to make this one of the best reads I can remember. Highly recommended!
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Title: Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment by James Gustave Speth ISBN: 0300102321 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Lost World : Rewriting Prehistory---How New Science Is Tracing America's Ice Age Mariners by Tom Koppel ISBN: 0743453573 Publisher: Atria Books Pub. Date: 24 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: One Last Look by SUSANNA MOORE ISBN: 0679450416 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: The Zanzibar Chest: A Story of Life, Love, and Death in Foreign Lands by Aidan Hartley ISBN: 0871138719 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy by Andro Linklater ISBN: 0802713963 Publisher: Walker & Co Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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