NYT on India Becoming

The New York Times finally runs its review of India Becoming, and it’s a nice, positive thoughtful one. Geoffrey C. Ward says it’s a “lucid, balanced new book.” He says I’m sometimes “reiterative” (a nicer way of saying “repetitive,” I think: I love it when reviewers are generous with their choice of words), but continues: “Kapur is determinedly fair-minded, neither an apologist nor a scold, and he is a wonderfully empathetic listener, willing patiently to visit and revisit a large cast of men and women over several years to learn how they are benefiting from — and being battered by — the change going on all around them.”

“Kapur is especially qualified to assess the contrasts and contradictions all that change has brought,” he writes. “[He] is at his best when writing about what is happening out in the country, where he has chosen to live. ”