NIALL  FERGUSON

The House of Rothschild --Money's Prophets---1798--1848 ; Published by Viking ;Pages 648 ; Price Rs.1236 /-

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All of us are aware that the Suez Canal was constructed  when  the Prime Minister of England was Benjamin Disraeli. There was a major financial crisis and Disraeli appealed to his friend Nathan  Rothschild to help the Government. In 1875, the London banking house of N M Rothschild & Sons advanced the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, acting for the British Government, the vast sum of £4,000,000 to purchase Suez Canal shares. According to legend, this was transacted on a gentleman’s agreement, with no documentation, a technically unsecured loan for a sum of over £550 million today.

Niall  Ferguson  is an outstanding   historian and political commentator. He  is an authority on international history, economic and financial history, and British and American imperialism. He bagged the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism in 2013. He has 55 books to his credit including the popular "Ascent of Money " and "Kissinger" 

The book is a remarkable portrait of  the unique and unusual  Rothschild family.The author brings out  the secrets behind the family’s phenomenal achievements. We learn of the  family’s extensive  political network, endowing it  access to and influence over many of the greatest statesmen of the age. The family  became masters of the political universe. They dined with Disraeli and Gladstone, hunted with the Prince of Wales and helped engineer Napoleon III's impetuous marriage to the adventuress Eugenie de Montijo. They also devoted time and money for charity and worked hard enhance the civil and political rights of Jews.  Ferguson recounts, ''the origins of the state of Israel can . . . be traced back to a letter to Lord Rothschild.'' 

 Ferguson relates  a family saga, bringing out  the crucial role of Judaism in the lives of a dynasty that rose from the confines of the Frankfurt ghetto and later used its influence to assist oppressed Jews throughout Europe.

 This is  definitive work of solid scholarship combined with easy readability.It is a biography of the rarest kind, in which mysterious and fascinating historical figures finally spring to life.

 Anyone interested in finance, European history or the rise of one spectacularly successful Jewish family will find  this history of the Rothschilds spellbinding. Equipped with unprecedented access to pre-1915 Rothschild archives, the author  begins the family history with Frankfurt merchant Mayer Amschel.The real story starts with the arrival of the most capable of his sons, Nathan Mayer, in England 200 years ago. Each of Mayer's five sons was located in different cities--Paris, London, Vienna, Naples and Frankfurt. Combined with a mandated unity that kept the brothers remarkably close while excluding daughters, in-laws and strangers, this geographic dispersal gave the family's financial firm an unbeatable edge, despite Mayer's sons being of unequal competence. N.M. Rothschild is the one Ferguson chooses as his “Hero” It was largely because of this unique Genius that from 1815 on, the Rothschilds were everywhere part of Europe--they dominated the international bond market; bought and sold commodities such as cotton, tobacco, sugar, copper and mercury; and influenced Metternich, Wellington, Queen Victoria, Bismarck, Gladstone and Disraeli.

Ferguson debunks myths and carefully reconstructs the truth. He has done a brilliant job of depicting this far-flung family  and  managed to offer an amazing insider's look at the financial, political and military aspects of early 19th-century European life.

 Ferguson makes their absorbing  story a seminar on the financial history of Europe. In their heyday, the Rothschilds practiced geopolitics on a grand scale. They arranged the tricky reparations following the Franco-Prussian conflict, were active in securing Suez for Victoria, and managed assets for the Vatican. Contrary to myth, they were generally pacifists. “While others unified nations, the Rothschilds were quietly unifying Europe,” using railroads as a binding factor. They demolished social barriers erected against Jews, hobnobbing easily with aristocracy and royalty. They joined the nobility themselves and acquired  castles and art in enormous  quantities. By the turn of the last century and the advent of the fifth generation, however, there was a decline in the Rothschilds’ fortunes. They had failed  to establish a foothold in the New World. Power was dispersed among numerous, often effete, cousins. Virulent anti-Semitism and two world wars left the family enterprises no more important than those of their numerous competitors.   

 Ferguson was granted access to the English branch of the family’s archives  including correspondence between the brothers. This correspondence was often of an incredibly sensitive nature and if it were to fall into the wrong hands would place the brothers at a distinct disadvantage, therefore the brothers wrote to each other in code but far worse, in Juden Deutsche, essentially German using Hebrew script, making it near impenetrable to most and for the writer something of a hurdle to overcome when translating!.

The volume  lays to rest many of the historical inaccuracies, myths and legends that surround the family and how it acquired its wealth .The brothers acquired their wealth and power primarily through the sale and purchase of government bonds which helped the finance of grand public works throughout the industrial revolution as they were located in each of the main European finance centres, thus enabling the creation of a cross border market for bonds, something otherwise hitherto unknown or dreamt of before.

The House of Rothschild became the first de facto multi-national merchant and investment bank and as such, they were able to become probably the wealthiest family in Europe in the 19th century. They stayed ever faithful to their religion and its followers throughout all of Europe and beyond.

The book is a great  example of a very well researched piece of historical work that  is easily accessible to the general public, whether they have a limited knowledge of finance or of events in the 19th century.

An outstanding piece of historical work  packed with information and written in an eminently readable style.

P.P.Ramachandran

16/06/2018.

CHARLES  ALLEN

Coromandel by Charles Allen ; Published by  Little Brown Group ; Pages  411 ; Price Rs.699/-

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The author of the book under review Charles Allen is a historian and   an acknowledged authority on British Indian and South Asian history who has bagged several awards for his contribution to Asian studies. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society, a  Member of the Kipling Society and a Member of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs. Charles’s most recently published work is a biography of  Ashoka.

 Coromandel  is  Allen’s 22nd book, in over 40  years of writing. He moves through modern-day India, discovering as much about the present as he does about the past. He  makes history riveting  by vigorous narration exploding with delightful nuggets. Coromandel is his latest  history of South India and Sri Lanka.

Coromandel denotes the northern Tamil country or  the eastern coast of India, but the book covers the entire . In fact  Allen begins with the history of humankind, the formative years of the earth, the continental drifts to how the planet is  today. He  looks at the volcanic southern plateau, the land of Agastya, geologically the oldest, with two mountainous ridges in the east and the west (the Western and Eastern Ghats), much higher than the huge trough between the northern mountains. This was a land of peoples who spoke languages very different from the languages spoken by peoples in the north. Scholars of the East India Company tried t o understand and unravel the mysteries of this unknown terrain. 

 It was Francis Ellis christened  the southern languages  ‘Dravidian’ languages.He was followed by a scholar Robert Caldwell  who wrote the monumental work,   “ Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or the South Indian family of languages”. Caldwell’s work among the Dravidian adivasis and lower caste people gave birth to a “self-respect movement”   leading   eventually  to the rise of  the Dravidian movement. Caldwell’s  has been honoured with his statue being erected on the seashore of Chennai.

Allen has a special interest in the non-Brahmanical religious orders. The 5th century BCE saw the rise of several Nastika philosophical  gurus including Gautama,  Mahavira, Goshala Mankkhaliputta, Ajita Kesakambali, Purana Kasyapa . The word Nastika pointed out those philosophical thoughts which did not accept the authority of the Vedas.

Excepting Buddhism and Jainism, the others had a short life. Both these orders denied the Vedic caste system and flourished among the lower castes with the patronage from the  trading caste. Buddhism developed into a well organised religious order when it received royal patronage from Magadha. Jainism  had  a few royal patrons. The Jain gurus with their unique lives of austerity and self-sacrifice continue to retain their influence.

 Brahmanical religion encouraged by the Guptas became strong and their religious images swept over the entire country. Classical  art flourished  with the best Ajanta frescoes  drawn using the classical norms set out by the Silpasastras, on one hand and the literature of Kalidasa and others on the other. 

 Meanwhile  the Rashtrakutas were becoming important . The ascendancy of the  Cholas state ushered  in a new phase of imperial power. Art and literature flourished. There developed regional varieties of the Gupta idiom - exquisite bronzes, gigantic temples.

Allen meticulously mentions the pioneering works, mostly from the 17th century - even the marauders are given much credit for their observations. He mentions Niuehf, a Dutch, as the first person to mention the customs and costumes of the Nayars. Allen has gone as far as giving Tessitori, an Italian scholar, the credit of discovering the Indus Valley Civilisation and not to RD Banerji. The importance of the site of Mohenjodaro was realised by this officer and he informed Sir John Marshall of its importance

 

The book deals with some of the major dynasties of South India rather cursorily, but spends much time on other unrelated matters. One of the most delightful ­stories the author narrates is about Rous Peter, who was the collector of Madurai in the early years of the 19th century. “According to local folk songs, Rous Peter was woken by a three-year-old girl with three breasts who dragged him by the hand out of his bungalow whereupon it was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. The girl then ran into the Meenakshi temple and was not seen again.” Peter is supposed to have made an offering in gratitude to the temple in the form of a pair of golden stirrups studded with rubies.

There are a few bloomers  in the book. Allen proclaims ‘for many Hindus there is only one version of Rama’s journey and that is Valmiki’s Ramayana’!  Allen has perhaps forgotten  Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas.

 Allen without a shred of evidence posits  two Agastyas.One a Sanskrit Agastya and the other a Tamilian who initiated the Tamil language. The literature of the Sangam period is  rightly praised and  the contribution of Jains and Buddhists to south Indian culture is well-presented .

 Allen is all  praise for  I.Mahadevan, a former IAS officer who first identified Tamil-Brahmi, a script adapted for and used by the Tamil language. Allen begins each chapter romantically. He describes the ancient trade route from the Konkan through paddy fields to the cliffs of Ahmednagar and the picturesque Naneghat pass, little known to the outside world, where we see the prototype of modern Devanagari. This was the land of the Satavahanas or Andhras.

 The Buddhist era ends with the warrior king Mahendravarma Pallava who is responsible for Mamallapuram and the temples of Kanchipuram,

Allen covers  the rise of Shaivism and Vaishnavism, whose exponents were Nayanmars and Alwars. One of the early proponents of Shaivism was Adi Shankara, born in Kaladi, who travelled as far north as Kashmir and Nepal and established four maths. The book has significant omissions  --- the spread of south Indian culture to south-east Asia; the Vijayanagar Empire and Hampi; the earliest revolts against British rule, before 1857,etc. 

The most fascinating part of the volume deal with Buddhism and its cultural legacies from an age not often recognised . Allen contributes to inspiring the reader to make further voyages in the realm of  Indian history . This is a book, though it is a personal history , deserves wide readership .

P.P.Ramachandran

10/06/2018

S.KRISHNASWAMY

Unlikely Chemistry by S.Krishnaswamy ; Published by Rupa ; Pages 356 ; Price Rs 395/-

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How many of you have heard of the four hour Documentary “ From Indus Valley Civilisation to Indira Gandhi”?. It is an outstanding  film on Indian history, heritage and culture, noted for its authenticity,  prepared by Dr.S.Krishnaswamy. Unfortunately it  got mired in controversy since Indira Gandhi’s name was tied with it—quite innocuously.

A little about the author’s father Subrahmanyam who was a key figure behind the establishment of the Tamil film industry. He started Meenakshi Cinetone with R. M. Alagappa Chettiar, directing his first film Pavalakkodi, in which the Tamil film star M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar debuted. He made a remarkable shift with the politically emphatic  Balayogini, criticising the caste system prevalent then. His best-known work is the strident nationalistic reformist film  Thyagabhoomi based on a novel by Kalki Krishnamurthy, which was banned by the British government. Subrahmanyam’s daughter is the famous dancer  Dr. Padma Subramanyam.

Dr S. Krishnaswamy  acquired name and fame as  a  documentary and television filmmaker. He has annexed several  awards, including ,inter-alia, the Padma Shri ; Life Time Achievement Award from the US International Film & Video Festival, Los Angeles; Honor Summus Award from the Watumull Foundation, Hawaii. 

Krishnaswamy is the  co-author of an iconic   book “Indian Film” along with  the highly respected film historian Erik Barnouw. Working for the book with a professor of repute in visual communication gave Krishnaswamy all the confidence he needed. During his travel to India with Barnouw for research, he met stalwarts like V Shantaram and Satayjit Ray.

  The present book  is the life story of a couple—one a scientist and the other a filmmaker—who face extraordinary challenges both on the personal front and in their respective careers. They are successful in creating a life wholly as decided by them.  A tough question that has been answered eloquently is “How can two people survive in a marriage when one of them sees it as an impediment to personal growth? “

The aim and ambition of the scientist wife  Mohana   is to discover an Ayurvedic drug for cancer.She has to  fight an odious  system. While she was on the threshold of global recognition biases of a system plagued by caste-based reservations made her give up her research.

 Krishnaswamy is deeply disturbed by a distorted American documentary on India, vows to make an authentic film on Indian history, heritage and culture. This he achieves  with the release of his four-hour film,  “Indus Valley to Indira Gandhi”.

 On his return to India, he began making small films like ‘Brown Diamond’ (on Neyveli lignite corporation) until he had the funds to launch his magnum opus  “From Indus Valley to Indira Gandhi “, a historical documentary, whose title was inspired by Siegfried Kracauer’s ‘Caligary to Hitler’ .He and his wife travelled 60,000km within the country to shoot in 120 locations. Acclaimed music Salil Chowdhury composed the background score while M S Subbulakshmi lent her voice to the film. After crossing the hurdles of certification board, he ran into major difficulties in distributing the documentary. It was then that renowned industrialist T.T. Vasu  arranged for a screening of the film in Bombay. Shri.Nadkarni, then head of Warner Brothers in India also arranged for a meeting of Krishnaswamy with the company’s vice president, who after watching the film bought its global distribution rights. In no time, Indians started flocking for distribution rights. When the film was screened, it ran for more than 100 days. Krishnaswamy says BJP leader L K Advani after attending a special show remarked, "It is a great film with a very bad title."

Krishnaswamy and Mohana combined their efforts and produced over two hundred non-fiction films and a dozen television serials. Quite expectedly , their progress was hindered by  controversies, legal battles and societal prejudices.  The couple were locked up with several law suits against a TV Serial. The Judiciary fully supported their interpretation of history. Their strong foundation in righteousness  and spirituality ensured their  success.

 What is unusual about this book is that it provides  a graceful analysis of the prevailing social and cultural picture of the past half a century which is at once  pleasurable and meaningful. How the ‘chemistry’ of the couple has been established traversing tough terrains  with  an earthquake thrown in has been deftly captured.

Dr Krishnaswamy and Dr Mohana  are undoubtedly a paradigm worth pursuing—exemplifying the success of a Hindu wedding. Highlights of the volume are the  analytical essays on mass media and politics, a profound philosophical analysis of the Indian psyche; in addition a delightful piece on  love and relationships. The couple  are rightly acclaimed for their half a century of contributions to the nation as documentary and television filmmakers .

 One cannot but agree with the eminent agricultural scientist Dr.M.S.Swaminathan who in his eloquent Foreword declares that this book  is “ a magic box from which the author pulls out a rainbow of emotions, patriotism, world view, history and humour—all based on life, wedded to truth.”

Krishnaswamy calls this book Mohana’s biography, while it is also his autobiography. It is a biography of his wife, whose progress as a scientist was hindered by political policies, when she was on the threshold of international acclaim. After she won the Hari Om Ashram’s National Award for research in Ayurveda; after her visit to China as a guest of the Institute of Medicinal Plant Development in Beijing her interests migrated to media and she colloborated with her husband ,giving up her passionate pursuit of research in Ayurveda.

Krishnaswamy narrates his inter action with eminent Heads of States and icons of religion and he gives accounts of dramatic events.

Their dedication and devotion to the cause of making films is impressive.The book reveals Krishnaswamy’s reverence for his mother. He admired his Father who swam against the colonial current.About a hundred photographs add to the kaleidoscopic nature of the bok

The last chapters are political in nature and Krishnaswamy does not hide his interests and commitment.

The Annexure to the book gives the text of Krishnaswamy’s Essay which highlights the writer’s political attainments. Mohan has also contributed valuable articles on Ayurveda.

The book is admirably well written and can be enjoyed by students of Film and Social Life in our country.

P.P.Ramachandran.

03/06/2018.