The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone
Reflections on India, the Emerging 21st-Century Power
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Narrated by:
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Vishal Menon
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By:
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Shashi Tharoor
About this listen
For more than four decades after gaining independence, India, with its massive size and population, staggering poverty and slow rate of growth, was associated with the plodding, somnolent elephant, comfortably resting on its achievements of centuries gone by. Then, in the early 1990s, the elephant seemed to wake up from its slumber and slowly begin to change - until today, in the first decade of the 21st century, some have begun to see it morphing into a tiger.
As India turns 60, Shashi Tharoor, novelist and essayist, reminds us of the paradox that is India, the elephant that is becoming a tiger: With the highest number of billionaires in Asia, it still has the largest number of people living amid poverty and neglect, and more children who have not seen the inside of a schoolroom than any other country.
So, what does the 21st century hold for India? Will it bring the strength of the tiger and the size of an elephant to bear upon the world? Or will it remain an elephant at heart?
In more than 60 essays organized thematically into six parts, Shashi Tharoor analyses the forces that have made 21st-century India - and could yet unmake it. He discusses the country's transformation in his characteristic lucid prose, writing with passion and engagement on a broad range of subjects, from the very notion of "Indianness" in a pluralist society to the evolution of the once sleeping giant into a world leader in the realms of science and technology; from the men and women who make up his India - Gandhi and Nehru and the less obvious Ramanujan and Krishna Menon - to an eclectic array of Indian experiences and realities, virtual and spiritual, political and filmi.
The audiobook is leavened with whimsical and witty pieces on cricket, Bollywood, and the national penchant for holidays, and topped off with an A-to-Z glossary on Indianness, written with tongue firmly in cheek. Diverting and instructive as ever, artfully combining hard facts and statistics with personal opinions and observations, Tharoor offers a fresh, insightful look at this timeless and fast-changing society, emphasizing that India must rise above the past if it is to conquer the future.
©2008 Shashi Tharoor (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Suicide of the West
- How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Jonah Goldberg
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Only once in the last 250,000 years have humans stumbled upon a way to lift ourselves out of the endless cycle of poverty, hunger, and war that defines most of history. If democracy, individualism, and the free market were humankind’s destiny, they should have appeared and taken hold a bit earlier in the evolutionary record. The emergence of freedom and prosperity was nothing short of a miracle.
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Put some gratitude in your attitude
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-18
By: Jonah Goldberg
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Liberal Fascism
- The Secret History of the American Left
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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"Fascists", "Brownshirts", "jackbooted stormtroopers" - such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?
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Great book
- By Mark on 05-10-08
By: Jonah Goldberg
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Korea
- The Impossible Country
- By: Daniel Tudor
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Long overshadowed by Japan and China, South Korea is a small country that happens to be one of the great national success stories of the postwar period. From a failed state with no democratic tradition, ruined and partitioned by war, and sapped by a half-century of colonial rule, South Korea transformed itself in just 50 years into an economic powerhouse and a democracy that serves as a model for other countries. With no natural resources and a tradition of authoritarian rule, Korea managed to accomplish a second Asian miracle.
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Amazing book
- By Antoine on 12-14-18
By: Daniel Tudor
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The Case for Nationalism
- How It Made Us Powerful, United, and Free
- By: Rich Lowry
- Narrated by: Roy Worley
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Case for Nationalism, Lowry explains how nationalism was central to the American Project. It fueled the American Revolution and the ratification of the Constitution. It preserved the country during the Civil War. It led to the expansion of the American nation’s territory and power, and eventually to our invaluable contribution to creating an international system of self-governing nations.
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Truth does matter !
- By CFC on 11-06-19
By: Rich Lowry
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Eurotrash
- Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent
- By: David Harsanyi
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Europe has been declining under the weight of its antiquated institutions, economic fatigue, moral anemia, and cultural surrender. Yet American politicians, technocrats, academics, and pundits argue, with increasing popularity, that Americans should look across the Atlantic for solutions to the nation’s problems, including on issues like health care, the welfare state, immigration, and a bloated bureaucracy.
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Details on many ways Europe is lacking
- By Alicia B. on 11-15-21
By: David Harsanyi
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America's Expiration Date
- The Fall of Empires and Superpowers...and the Future of the United States
- By: Cal Thomas
- Narrated by: John Dowd
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
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In this powerful and prophetic audiobook, nationally syndicated columnist and trusted political commentator Cal Thomas offers a diagnosis of what exactly is wrong with the US by drawing parallels to once-great empires and nations that declined into oblivion. Citing the historically proven 250-year pattern of how superpowers rise and fall, he predicts America's expiration date is just around the corner and shows us how to escape their fate.
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No Renewed Hope Here. We’re done!
- By Dave Kuper on 02-02-20
By: Cal Thomas
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The Smallest Minority
- Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics
- By: Kevin D. Williamson
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Listener beware: Kevin D. Williamson - the lively, literary firebrand from National Review who was too hot for The Atlantic to handle - comes to bury democracy, not to praise it. With electrifying honesty and spirit, Williamson takes a flamethrower to mob politics, the “beast with many heads” that haunts social media and what currently passes for real life. It’s destroying our capacity for individualism and dragging us down “the Road to Smurfdom, the place where the deracinated demos of the Twitter age finds itself feeling small and blue.”
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Brutally honest, accurate and relevant
- By Sean on 09-19-19
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War for Eternity
- Inside Bannon's Far-Right Circle of Global Power Brokers
- By: Benjamin R. Teitelbaum
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2015, Bloomberg News named Steve Bannon "the most dangerous political operative in America." Since then, he has grown exponentially more powerful - and not only in the United States. In this groundbreaking and urgent account, award-winning scholar of the radical right Benjamin Teitelbaum takes listeners behind the scenes of Bannon's global campaign against modernity.
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The Industrial Revolution and it's consequences...
- By Kindle Customerd on 04-24-20
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Fascism
- A Warning
- By: Madeleine Albright
- Narrated by: Madeleine Albright
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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At the end of the 1980s, when the Cold War ended, many, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, believed that democracy had triumphed politically once and for all. Yet nearly 30 years later, the direction of history no longer seems certain. A repressive and destructive force has begun to reemerge on the global stage - sweeping across Europe, parts of Asia, and the United States - that to Albright, looks very much like fascism.
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Warning!
- By JAL on 04-19-18
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Three Tigers, One Mountain
- A Journey Through the Bitter History and Current Conflicts of China, Korea, and Japan
- By: Michael Booth
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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There is an ancient Chinese proverb that states, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain." However, in East Asia, there are three tigers on that mountain: China, Japan, and Korea, and they have a long history of turmoil and tension with each other. In his latest entertaining and thought-provoking narrative travelogue, Michael Booth sets out to discover how deep, really, the enmity is between these three "tiger" nations and what prevents them from making peace.
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Not much new here if you are already familiar
- By Neil Richert on 07-13-20
By: Michael Booth
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Confucius
- And the World He Created
- By: Michael Schuman
- Narrated by: Steven Menache
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Confucius is perhaps the most important philosopher in history. Today his teachings shape the daily lives of more than 1.6 billion people. Throughout East Asia, Confucius' influence can be seen in everything from business practices and family relationships to educational standards and government policies. Even as Western ideas from Christianity to Communism have bombarded the region, Confucius' doctrine has endured as the foundation of East Asian culture.
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all you need to know about the Chinese
- By Luke on 03-02-16
By: Michael Schuman
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We Have Overcome
- An Immigrant's Letter to the American People
- By: Jason D. Hill
- Narrated by: Jared Wright
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The dominant narrative, repeated in the media and from the angry mouths of politicians and activists, is the exact opposite of the reality. They paint a portrait of an America rife with racial and ethnic division, where minorities are mired in a poverty worse than slavery, and white people stand at the top of an unfairly stacked pyramid of privilege. Jason D. Hill corrects the narrative in this powerfully eloquent book. Dr. Hill came to America at the age of twenty from Jamaica and, rather than being faced with intractable racial bigotry, Hill found a land of bountiful opportunity.
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A message of hope for all Americans
- By No Regrets on 06-25-20
By: Jason D. Hill
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The Italians
- By: John Hooper
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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John Hooper's marvelously entertaining and perceptive new book is ideal for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy and the unique character of the Italians. Looking at the facts that lie behind and often belie the stereotypes, his revealing book sheds new light on many aspects of Italian life: football and Freemasonry, sex, symbolism, and the reason Italian has twelve words for a coat hanger yet none for a hangover.
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Mi piace molto!
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-30-16
By: John Hooper