The Indian Ocean was global long before the Atlantic, and today the countries bordering the Bay of Bengal—India, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia—are home to one in four people on Earth. Crossing the Bay of Bengal places this region at the heart of world history for the first time. Integrating human and environmental history, and mining a wealth of sources, Sunil Amrith gives a revelatory and stirring new account of the Bay and those who have inhabited it. For centuries the Bay of Bengal served as a maritime highway between India and China, and then as a battleground for European empires, all while being shaped by the monsoons and by human migration. Imperial powers in the nineteenth century, abetted by the force of capital and the power of steam, reconfigured the Bay in their quest for coffee, rice, and rubber. Millions of Indian migrants crossed the sea, bound by debt or spurred by drought, and filled with ambition. Booming port cities like Singapore and Penang became the most culturally diverse societies of their time. By the 1930s, however, economic, political, and environmental pressures began to erode the Bay’s centuries-old patterns of interconnection. Today, rising waters leave the Bay of Bengal’s shores especially vulnerable to climate change, at the same time that its location makes it central to struggles over Asia’s future. Amrith’s evocative and compelling narrative of the region’s pasts offers insights critical to understanding and confronting the many challenges facing Asia in the decades ahead.

Eaton ranges over all the important aspects of that community's history, whether political and social, or cultural and religious...This study must rank among the finest contributions to South Asian scholarship to appear for some while.

What happens when a distant colonial power tries to tame an unfamiliar terrain in the world's largest tidal delta? This history of dramatic ecological changes in the Bengal Delta from 1760 to 1920 involves land, water and humans, tracing the stories and struggles that link them together. Pushing beyond narratives of environmental decline, Bhattacharyya argues that 'property-thinking', a governing tool critical in making land and water discrete categories of bureaucratic and legal management, was at the heart of colonial urbanization and the technologies behind the draining of Calcutta. The story of ecological change is narrated alongside emergent practices of land speculation and transformation in colonial law. Bhattacharyya demonstrates how this history continues to shape our built environments with devastating consequences, as shown in the Bay of Bengal's receding coastline.

Examines the interconnected events including World War II, India's struggle for independence, and a period of acute scarcity that lead to mass starvation in colonial Bengal.

Winston Churchill has been venerated as a resolute statesman and one of the great political minds of the last century. But, as Madhusree Mukerjee reveals in this groundbreaking historical investigation, his deep-seated bias against Indians precipitated one of the world's greatest man-made disasters -- the Bengal Famine of 1943 -- resulting in the deaths of over four million Indians. Combining meticulous research with a vivid narrative, Churchill's Secret War places this overlooked tragedy into the larger context of World War II, India's freedom struggle and Churchill's legacy.

One of the distant regions visited by the intrepid 14th century Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta was East Bengal. At that time what is now Bangladesh comprised parts of three different kingdoms, Bengal, Lakhnauti and Kamrup. After a brief stay in Bengal proper Ibn Battuta proceeded to what is now Sylhet, in Kamrup, to visit the renowned Muslim saint Sheikh Jalaluddin Tabrizi (nowadays known as Hazrat Shah Jalal). This book, which is primarily intended for English-speaking students of Arabic, contains the pages of Ibn Battuta's travel memoirs which cover his time in East Bengal. Included in the book are the original Arabic text, a transcription in Roman characters, a translation and a comprehensive Arabic-English glossary.

The second book in the series is a thrilling story about a girl and the endangered Bengal Tiger. What is the connection between little Veera and the mysterious tiger, Tala? This chance encounter will forever change Veera's understanding of courage. Learn some terrific tiger facts, too!