The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity

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The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 · rating details · 1,957 ratings · 116 reviews

In sixteen linked essays, Nobel Prize--winning economist Amartya Sen discusses India's intellectual and political heritage and how its argumentative tradition is vital for the success of its democracy and secular politics. The Argumentative Indian is "a bracing sweep through aspects of Indian history and culture, and a tempered analysis of the highly charged disputes sur

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Paperback, 432 pages

Published August 1st 2006 by Penguin Books (first published 2005)

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Apr 09, 2012 Aydin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: politics, history

I read this book in preparation for a coming trip to India, along with "English August", and English translations of the "Bhagavad Gita" and "Ramayana".

It was, simply put, an articulate promotion for the value of the history of acceptance of heterogeny in India as part of the author's larger ideological framework and as a pointed criticism of the contemporary Hindutva movement, with beautiful threads of Indian history and culture woven in throughout.

The book got me wanting both to learn more ab...more

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Apr 28, 2013 Shehab Hamad rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

amartya sen is an intellectual giant and this a collection of his essays that ostensibly prove india’s generous argumentative heritage. the book is in fact much more than an orientalism-like rebuttal of western perceptions (appropriated by the indian far-right- the original butt of the book’s rebuttal it would seem) of the indian other. it’s a delightful journey alongside an incredibly learned mind through india’s deep pluralist, rationalist, humanist, agnostic, scientific, artistic roots (and s...more amartya sen is an intellectual giant and this a collection of his essays that ostensibly prove india’s generous argumentative heritage. the book is in fact much more than an orientalism-like rebuttal of western perceptions (appropriated by the indian far-right- the original butt of the book’s rebuttal it would seem) of the indian other. it’s a delightful journey alongside an incredibly learned mind through india’s deep pluralist, rationalist, humanist, agnostic, scientific, artistic roots (and some). and a much more enjoyable read than ed said’s orientalism which set out to do something similar for the middle east. sen starts with:

“Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at some length. Krishna Menon’s record of the longest speech ever delivered at the United Nations (nine hours non-stop), established half a century ago (when Menon was leading the Indian delegation), has not been equalled by anyone from anywhere. Other peaks of loquaciousness have been scaled by other Indians. We do like to speak. This is not a new habit. The ancient Sanskrit epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which are frequently compared with the Iliad and the Odyssey, are colossally longer than the works that the modest Homer could manage. Indeed, the Mahabharata alone is about seven times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are certainly great epics: I recall with much joy how my own life was vastly enriched when I encountered them first as a restless youngster looking for intellectual stimulation as well as sheer entertainment. But they proceed from stories to stories woven around their principal tales, and are engagingly full of dialogues, dilemmas and alternative perspectives. And we encounter masses of arguments and counterarguments spread over incessant debates and disputations.”

a few key recurring figures star in sen’s history: rabindranath tagore (whose school sen studied at), emperor akbar (a figure that should be made a hero in the islamic world based on this reading) and emperor ashoka all of whom require more reading on. along the way, sen finds time to illuminate the ancient china – india relationship (timely), introduce film maker satyajit ray and show the skeptical side of the ramayana (indeed, sen’s accounts of hinduism where atheism is simply one extreme of the scale are striking).

tagore in particular demands further digging, a wise, universalist, humanist with much to say on nationalism, education, politics spirituality.

riveting. required reading for anyone with even a cursory interest in mother india.(less)

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Jun 18, 2012 Partha rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Amartya Sen is a renowned Economist and a Noble Laureate, he is not much of a historian and this book stands testimony to that.

The comments on the back of the book claim a lot about this being the best account of Indian history that must be read by every Indian. I beg to disagree. I strongly feel that Dr.Sen should focus on Economics and leave history to historians.

The book is supposed to be a collection of essays on Indian culture, History and Identity. However there is a lot of repetition in a...more Amartya Sen is a renowned Economist and a Noble Laureate, he is not much of a historian and this book stands testimony to that.

The comments on the back of the book claim a lot about this being the best account of Indian history that must be read by every Indian. I beg to disagree. I strongly feel that Dr.Sen should focus on Economics and leave history to historians.

The book is supposed to be a collection of essays on Indian culture, History and Identity. However there is a lot of repetition in all the essays and what stands stark clear is Dr.Sen’s limited knowledge of Indian History. All the essays revolve around one or all of the below points though the titles are different:
The Bhagavad Gita as an argument between Krishna and Arjuna in the Mahabharatha
Javali’s argument with Rama quoted in Ramayana
Akbar’s forming Din Illahi as a combination of religions
Dr.Sen’s strong views against the BJP

There is a lot more to Indian History than just this. It so happens that I have read Jawaharlal Nehru’s “The Discovery of India” which is also a book on Indian culture, History and Identity. My view is that Nehru’s knowledge of Indian history was much more broader and his thoughts and views on India and the passion he had for his motherland are brought out much better in his book.

I am not sure if you have read it but “The Discovery of India” is definitely the best account of Indian History from one of her greatest citizens. As one reads the book , one can picturise Nehru sitting in Ahmednagar fort thinking about India, with pride while narrating her glorious past, with pity while narrating her then state (prior to Independence) and with determination and hope about her future. One can empathise with a great leader who was far ahead of his generation, whose thoughts are pertinent today. Nehru takes you through Indian history like a friend. If you have not read Nehru’s book it is high time you read it.

Coming back to “The Argumentative Indian”, the book gives you limited views of Indian History and its argumentative tradition from an Economist who studied in Oxford. Let me leave you by telling two good things about the book. The first thing is the book gives you some insight into Rabindranath Tagore’s life and how his thoughts differed from those of Mahatma Gandhi, thanks to Dr.Sen’s days in “The Shatiniketan” early on in his life. I haven’t read much about Tagore so far and I found the essay on Tagore to be good.

The other thing I liked in Sen’s book was a reference to this interesting quote from Ram Mohun Roy which I had never come across before.
“Just consider how terrible the day of your death will be.
Others will go on speaking, and you will not be able to argue back.”

Anyone out there, who has read one or both of these books, what do you think? I will be more than happy to take the argument further :-)(less)

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Aug 08, 2011 Neeraj Bali marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Sen establishes that India’s tradition for heterodoxy and argument is not restricted to male elites but cuts across gender, class and caste. The flow of his argument and richness of the sources convinces easily. Very early in the treatise, he also reveals his opposition to the Hindu right-wing thought. This is where things begin to come unstuck a bit.

I do not differ from him on the Hindutava world view. I believe that respect for pluralism is essential for our well-being and there is room for al...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Vijeta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013

I had read parts if this book when it first came out, but I finally reread the entire book this time. It primarily brings out the historical basis of India's diversity and heterogeneity as also its secular identity. It can get dull in parts, and even statistical at times, but on the whole I enjoyed reading about India's history, its argumentative tradition, its predilection for public reasoning and dialogue. The parts dealing with Tagore and Ray were of immense interest to me. The essay on China...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Sahil rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, sociology, economics

For starters let me be honest that it took me 8 months to complete this book, partly because of other engagements and partly that I found some portions boring as I would narrate. Dr Sen certainly has done a good job in trying to make west understand about India but unfortunately from an Indian perspective his observations were more focused on the eastern India from Bihar to Jharkhand and mostly his beloved Bengal where he traces his ancestry from.Though I would like to add that he did give accou...more

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Feb 27, 2012 Raj Sannidhi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Amartya Sen should be a familiar name to students of Economics and Moral Philosophy, having made substantial enough contributions to both to win a Nobel prize. This collection of essays serves well as a tip-of-the-iceberg introduction to Indian intellectual history as well as an examination of Democratic elements of Indian culture that predate British occupation. You get a sense that Sen has a bit of an agenda with this book, and he does- at points, his attempts at legitimizing Indian culture an...more

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Sep 20, 2011 Mohamed Islam rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Nice try by Mr. Sen but I am not sure Indian Hindus are willing to listen. Yes, only 26% vote for Sang Paribar. The same percent of voters in USA has veered the course of politics in USA towards definitive right. The same is happening in India. BJP is the force which is changing the direction of political discourse in India.
Dr. Sen did talk about Akbar. But did not mention about others. Except a very selected few, most of the Muslim Rulers perused a policy of tolerance. The Muslims rulers were...more

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Sep 27, 2009 Samir Dhond rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Needless to say, the book is on Indian culture, history and its identity. Very captivating, an eye opener in many ways for a person like me. It will get you thinking about India and its power as a nation. Dr. Amartya Sen has a way of expressing himself which is unique. It's easy to understand and I feel that if you have any feelings for this wonderful country and its people, you ought to read this book. I also felt that somewhere, he is trying to tell us that we do boast about modernity, technol...more

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Oct 29, 2012 Jaspal Rana rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

I am an avid reader of history and it was the first book by Amartya Sen which I read.And I have to say.I was sorely disappointed.What I had hoped to be an informative,well-researched account of Indian philosophies and school of thoughts turned out to be an amateur interpretation of Indian culture as perceived by the author.
Surely Mr Sen,India is much more than Javali,Ashoka,Akbar,Tagore,Gandhi and the BJP.
Over the course of reading this book,sometimes you can't help but feel suffocated by his vi...more

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Sep 23, 2012 Abhineet Gupta rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I felt that Amratya Sen did not do justice to the book. He raises some fine points about Indian history and current political situations, most of which I agree with but fails to present a comprehensive analysis of Indian history, culture and identity, as stated on the cover of the book. The book is more of a representation of his opinions and the writing feels biased towards proving the validity of his arguments. He seems obsessed with Hindu "fundamentalism" and his native Bengali culture. He co...more

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Jul 26, 2012 Nikhil Kaul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I must say Amartya Sen managed to encapsulate a lot in this book, with as few words as possible. The sheer complexity of language for a downtrodden and common reader depicted the level of the book in terms of Indian history, culture and art memoir. The initial pages struggle to catch the attention, as someone who reads "lighter" books or, let's say, is engaged more with a simpler base of the language, would find it pretty difficult to put things in shape. However, a few chapters read, and you ar...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Atul rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-i-own, history, india, society, culture, philosophy

It's a good book. Let's start by saying only that much.

Especially the first two parts: "Voice and Heterodoxy" and "Culture and Communication". These two sections take a very unusual take on India's history - far away from the usual format of a history book - whether written by an Indian or an outsider. And it is because Dr. Amartya Sen chooses a very narrow scheme to explore the concept of India. The language is impeccable, precise and often complex - but never confusing. For me, a paragraph lik...more It's a good book. Let's start by saying only that much.

Especially the first two parts: "Voice and Heterodoxy" and "Culture and Communication". These two sections take a very unusual take on India's history - far away from the usual format of a history book - whether written by an Indian or an outsider. And it is because Dr. Amartya Sen chooses a very narrow scheme to explore the concept of India. The language is impeccable, precise and often complex - but never confusing. For me, a paragraph like the one below, required serious slowing down:

"The absence of a conceptual congruence between different types of deprivation does not preclude their empirical proximity along a big dividing line, which is a central feature of classical class analysis."

I do realise that out-of-context it is even more vague - but even within context it took me a while to understand this concluding sentence. Perhaps it is just me.

The book, essentially, is a collection of previously written essays, some of which have been modified for the book. What this means is that there is significant repetition of certain examples and concepts and that can usually get you a but irritated. But books that are collections of essays have to be read in a different way - fairly independent of each other.

Somewhere in Part 3, I found a complete lack of the theme of argumentativeness - and that caused some reading pain. I say this, only as fair warning - not to criticise Part 3 as such. The content itself lacks nowhere; it has been researched well - and presented without emotion or unfounded passion. In the social and cultural crises that India finds itself, it may well worth be a book for most Indians to read - especially the bigots leaning on tradition and past culture. There's an interesting lesson in history for them. To the others, it is a wonderful exposition on India itself - and very interesting manner of looking at the country. For those of you who are not Indians, again, it is a fresh perspective - different from the dogma that has circulated so hard, it has created a permanent persuasion of what this country is.

And, yes, when you do read, remember that it is not a book in its true sense - but a collection of essays strung together on a theme. There is not much you would lose if you let go of a Part Three, but if The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity intrigues, definitely read Parts One and Two.(less)

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Jun 04, 2009 Yugaljoshi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As expected this book was below expectation. I believe the hype which surrounded the book was kind of a kill joy. Amartaya Sen has put a decent historical and cultural perspective into a compact format and the book is a good source of information. It shows that Indian culture and history is not only "spiritualism or religion" what the Western world is obsessed with but also a deep reason and heterodoxy based integrative culture. He talk about how a person Javali is given so much importance in th...more

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Sep 24, 2008 David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Revaz Ardesher

After all my dramatic agony and breathless complaining, I am glad I endured. The Argumentative Indian is neither easy nor fun to read. The first three pages of every chapter and sub-chapter are essentially wordy justifications of why the topic is deserving of discussion in the first place.

Throughout the book I was constantly thinking, Amartya, homeboy, stop talking about what you're going to talk about and just get to it. Sen himself is quite the argumentative Indian and sometimes the book reads...more After all my dramatic agony and breathless complaining, I am glad I endured. The Argumentative Indian is neither easy nor fun to read. The first three pages of every chapter and sub-chapter are essentially wordy justifications of why the topic is deserving of discussion in the first place.

Throughout the book I was constantly thinking, Amartya, homeboy, stop talking about what you're going to talk about and just get to it. Sen himself is quite the argumentative Indian and sometimes the book reads as if you walked in on a one man debate competition in which Sen, the convincing devil's advocate, faces off with Sen, the impassioned and patient defender of peace and tolerance.

Whichever literary framework you prefer, it must be said that Professor Sen is not an effortless writer. Cautious yes (footnotes, endnotes, and asterisks are abundant), but often at the expense of clarity.

Despite all of this, The Argumentative Indian is a book I recommend to everyone with an interest not just in India, but also the slippery relationship between cultural uniqueness and so-called universal values. The book is a collection of wide-ranging essays - most of which were previously published elsewhere - that are difficult to encapsulate in a single thesis, but maybe it would be something along these lines: Just how Western are so-called Western values? Democracy, individual liberty, multi-cultural tolerance, secularism, reasoned debate. Are these values unique to Western culture or have they been excluded from shallow historical readings of other civilizations. Like India, for example.

Sen is critical of two interpretations of modern India - internal separatism and global isolation. India is often portrayed as a mishmash of separate religions, languages, ethnicities, and castes which are only loosely held together by the legacy of European colonialism. He rejects that claim completely and spends much of the book reviewing the history of two major Indian leaders - Ashoka and Akbar - as examples of India's pre-colonial embrace of pluralism and multiculturalism. Sen is equally critical of those who try to promote a sense of Indian national identity by rejecting any economic, social, or intellectual engagement with the West. In fact, he keenly observes that most anti-Western thought in India is, in fact, rooted in European intellectual circles.

It was the first essay - responsible for the name of the book - that I found most interesting. Why has India become such a strong democracy (the one blemish to India's post-colonial democracy was Indira Ghandi's "Emergency" which was strongly rejected by Indian voters) compared to most other British colonies-turned-nation-states? Sen seemingly argues that India was democractic before it was ever a democracy. That is, India despite it's endless history of being invaded by foreign powers, has always embraced skepticism, reasoned public debate, and multicultural tolerance - all of which are key ingredients of modern democracy.

It is his idea of "democracy as public reasoning" that intrigued me the most because that is one of my main arguments for why I go around passionately promoting participatory media. I'm a sucker for the idea that the more we discuss and debate - and especially the more we listen - the more tolerant and empathetic we become. Sometimes I worry that in aggressively promoting discussion, I am promoting a particularly Western way of interacting with the world around us. Amartya Sen doesn't seem to think so. Discussion, he argues, is as universal as love.(less)

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May 15, 2008 Divya rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Argumentative Indian: It's a largely good read and apart from being a sort of very well researched and insightful history lesson, it's a feel-good book as well: I mean, it is quite nice to see evidence for there not having been much paucity here of -what is most widely regarded as a hallmark (and sometimes exclusive?) achievement of the 'West'*:P. As well-argued as it is, I must admit to a considerable lack of any sort of critical thinking on my part while reading it; I was happy to raise no...more

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May 24, 2008 Khalid rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Really it's an excellent work. Most of the people know that the advancement and civilization of present world was born in Europe. Also we knew that all modern philosophical, astronomical, mathematical, and scientific basic works were initiated by westerners.

Amartya Sen upholds the ancient ground works of mathematics, philosophy, economics, astronomy, science and technology, democracy initiated and nurtured in India and China. He noted the works of Arya Bhatta, Kautilya, Buddha, Ashoka, Akbar, a...more

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Dec 16, 2007 Espen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone interested in India, history and globalization

Shelves: india

I picked this up in India, after having read Gurcharan Das' India Unbound and wanting to learn more about the history and society of a country that holds a fifth of the world's population and now, finally, is beginning to pull its weight in the international economy. Sen's collection of essays is the intellectual complement to Das' rather easier and less multifaceted account of the economic liberation of India, focusing on the central aspects of deliberation ("argumentativeness") and religious t...more

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Dec 15, 2007 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you laid all the economists in the world end to end, the old joke goes, you would never reach a conclusion. So it's all the more remarkable that it is as a practitioner of the "dismal science" that Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize in 1998. Sen is a man of conclusions; he is also brilliant at marshalling, with both extensive research and empirical evidence, the arguments that justify his conclusions. The Argumentative Indian -- a collection of 16 essays, many reworked and expanded from lecture...more If you laid all the economists in the world end to end, the old joke goes, you would never reach a conclusion. So it's all the more remarkable that it is as a practitioner of the "dismal science" that Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize in 1998. Sen is a man of conclusions; he is also brilliant at marshalling, with both extensive research and empirical evidence, the arguments that justify his conclusions. The Argumentative Indian -- a collection of 16 essays, many reworked and expanded from lectures and previously published articles -- is an intellectual tour de force from an economist who can lay equal claim to the designations of sociologist, historian, political analyst and moral philosopher. It is a magisterial work, except that the adjective is not one of which Sen would approve.
The essays are not merely celebratory of Sen's "capacious idea of India." In hailing the Indian argumentative tradition, Sen does not overlook the need for discourse to be politically effective, and his chapter on Indian democracy is both reasoned and critical, calling for "broadening the force and range of political arguments and social demands." While hailing Indian democracy's success in preventing the famines that occurred with depressing regularity under British colonial rule, he stresses that this does not mean the problem of chronic and endemic hunger ("a much more complex task") has been solved. His demolition job on the Indian nuclear tests of 1998 is all the more effective for being couched in the language of reasoned discourse.

Sen is a cosmopolitan and an Indian -- and he, of course, would see no contradiction in those terms. Educated at Rabindranath Tagore's experimental school, Shantiniketan (where the earlier Bengali Nobelist prophetically dubbed Sen "Amartya," or "immortal"), and at Cambridge University, the first non-English Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, the holder of two named professorships at Harvard, film buff, cricket fan and voracious reader, Sen embodies the yearning for heterodox learning.

There is only one problem with his rich and instructive book: He constructs his essays with such meticulous reasoning and expresses his point of view in so courteous a tone that this Indian found it difficult to pick an argument with him. A future edition will need a less contentious title.

Reviewed by Shashi Tharoor
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved
(less)

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Jun 22, 2007 Malini Sridharan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I think this collection is pretty fantastic. It deals with a lot of important issues facing Indians but also makes the discussions relevant to people of all nationalities. Examples are drawn from all throughout India's history to illustrate and explore current economic, political, and personal struggles within India and between India and the rest of the world. I found the essay on Buddhist exchanges with CHina and the discussion of the BJP's politics to be the most interesting.

The main problem I...more

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Oct 29, 2012 Ashish Sharma rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-didnt-finish

It is one of those books you do not like because they myopically only look at one side of the story and through numerous instances prove it..I for one do not believe in the mythology that the book has frequently quoted from...secondly yes there have been instances of Indians being rational and scientific at times in those mythological books but there are numerous other instances which show otherwise..I for one do not believe that Indians were really argumentative and progressive as shown in the...more

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Jun 21, 2008 Stuart rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

In this collection of essays, Amartya Sen argues that India shouldn't be judged as strictly a religious Hindu society, but instead a multicultural, multi-religious society. One that has made many contributions science and mathematics. He is arguing against the right wing Hindu party's claim that India is a Hindu nation (much like the argument against the US as a Christian Nation), just because a majority of Indian's identify as Hindu. He is also arguing against the portrayal by many Westerners o...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Jenna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: purgatory

This was some rather academic background reading for my trip and my research. I think I only got through the first essay, as it was very dense, but it gave an interesting perspective on what Sen thinks of as the Indian character and how it may affect democracy. I've definitely seen and been impressed by people's lack of hesitation to get into very intense discussions here - one of the things I like most, actually. I'd be interested to get into the rest of this.

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Apr 12, 2013 Laurent Videau rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you live in India or have reasons to deal with this country on a long term basis, this book is very good to understand this country and its very complex,rich and paradoxical culture.

India is indeed a country where everything is argued all the time. Being the greatest democracy in the world has its advantages and disavantages. Overall, India is a fascinating country and its history, with various influences, is well explained in this book.

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Oct 27, 2010 Nick rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: india, history

Most essays in the book are compelling on their own, but Sen seems to have a limited store of knowledge from which he pulls examples. He recycles a lot of the same un-detailed facts. As a result, the entire work seems slightly superficial in it's thoroughness. As a result, I'd recommend you only read the essays on subjects of interest to you. The essays on India's scientific history, and history of secularism/rationalism are what earn this book's stars. A collection of them alone would earn 5 st...more

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Mar 29, 2010 Rick rated it 2 of 5 stars

We see this book everywhere here in Delhi; small children try to sell us copies of it at intersections. I finally broke down and bought a copy. It contains sixteen academic essays on various aspects of Indian culture (and history and identity), all written by the author. While it does contain some interesting information, as a whole it's rather tedious and repetitive.

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Jul 16, 2012 Ashutosh Agnihotri rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The author puts in preface: there may be different views for the topics and issues raised in the book. No doubt there are; but, author has weaved this books with beautiful craft to put logical and factual arguments to reveal a stream of cultural understanding that is very very Indian - and seen from Indian perspective too.

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Dec 22, 2012 Palash Bansal rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A masterpiece by one of the finest brains of the country. Really got me thinking as to who we really are, and how can we define ourselves? Are we really divided on the basis of caste, religion, region, sex etc or is there something else binding us all into a single identity!!

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Apr 30, 2011 Aaron Terrazas rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sen is one of my favorite authors and I have read his work extensively. Unfortunately, this is not among his better work. It is a seemingly random collection of incomplete and disconnected pieces that could benefit from greater coherence and further reflection

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Mar 14, 2010 sima rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's not an easy read but there's good information and perspective in here. Bits and pieces stood out to me--the "kernels" of wisdom. I think the philosophy and take aways of his essays are great, but the dialoguing was often long and drawn out. It'd be great if someone wrote out a short few sentences describing his very interesting points so that i'd get the takeaways without having to slog through the various essays.

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About Amartya Sen

Amartya Kumar Sen is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society’s poorest members.

Sen was best known for his work on the causes of famine, which led to the development of practical solutions for preventing or limiting the effects of real or perceiv...more

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Books by Amartya Sen

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny

Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation

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