The collective, indeterminable madness of Karachi And how is one to extract Karachi from oneself? The city gathers wanderers and dreamers into its bosom, contradictory, impenetrable, endlessly jostling its subjects to make room for new ones. And in this city of subterranean terrors and surprising bouts of goodness, a brother and a sister grow into their own. Seema and Hafiz, born into a Basti, long to make something of themselves. But when Seema wins a scholarship to attend university, she finds that social barriers are not easily defied, and when Hafiz finds himself smitten by a coworker's wife, he learns of the mutability of love and friendship. Meanwhile, Claire, an American anthropologist, discovers that while her professional training will only take her so far in her quest to unravel Karachi, living in the Basti is an education in itself. Anis Shivani's debut novel is an ambitious work that aches with intimacy even as it encompasses an entire generation into its bold, panoramic vision. Karachi Raj is the sort of book that will shape our understanding of urban Pakistan for years to come.

A carefully crafted selection of essays from international experts, this book explores the effect of colonial architecture and space on the societies involved – both the colonizer and the colonized. Focusing on British India and Ceylon, the essays explore the discursive tensions between the various different scales and dimensions of such 'empire-building' practices and constructions. Providing a thorough exploration of these tensions, Colonial Modernities challenges the traditional literature on the architecture and infrastructure of the former European empires, not least that of the British Indian 'Raj'. Illustrated with seventy-five halftone images, it is a fascinating and thoroughly grounded exposition of the societal impact of colonial architecture and engineering.

The idea of Pakistan stands riddled with tensions. Initiated by a small group of select Urdu-speaking Muslims who envisioned a unified Islamic state, today Pakistan suffers the divisive forces of various separatist movements and religious fundamentalism. A small entrenched elite continue to dominate the country’s corridors of power, and democratic forces and legal institutions remain weak. But despite these seemingly insurmountable problems, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan continues to endure. The Pakistan Paradox is the definitive history of democracy in Pakistan, and its survival despite ethnic strife, Islamism and deepseated elitism. This edition focuses on three kinds of tensions that are as old as Pakistan itself. The tension between the unitary definition of the nation inherited from Jinnah and centrifugal ethnic forces; between civilians and army officers who are not always in favour of or against democracy; and between the Islamists and those who define Islam only as a cultural identity marker.

Karachi is a city framed in the popular imagination by violence, be it criminality and gangsterism or political factionalism. That perception also dominates literary, cinematic and scholarly representations and discussions of this great metropolis. By commenting in different ways on the trials and tribulations of Karachi and Pakistan, the contributors to this innovative book on the city build on past writings to say something new or different -- to make their reader re-think how they understand the processes at work in this vast urban space. They scrutinise Karachi's diverse neighborhoods to show how violence is manifested locally and citywide into protest drinking, social and religious movements, class and cosmopolitanism, gang wars, and how it affects the fractured lives of militants and journalists, among others. Oral history and memoir feature strongly in the volume as do insights gleaned from anthropology and political science