Before Superman, before Batman, there was—the Phantom! Making its debut as an American newspaper comic strip in 1936, The Phantom was the forerunner of the comic-book superhero genre that today animates vast billion-dollar franchises spanning print, film, television, video games, and licensed merchandise. But you’ve probably never heard of it—you probably think Superman inaugurated the genre. That’s because, despite its American origins, The Phantom comic strip has enjoyed far greater popularity with international audiences, most notably in Australia, Sweden, and India, where it has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and comic books. The paradox of the character’s relative obscurity in the United States, offset by his phenomenal success in these three markedly different countries, is the subject of The Phantom Unmasked. By tracing the publication history of The Phantom in magazines and comic books across international markets since the mid-1930s, author Kevin Patrick delves into the largely unexplored prehistory of modern media licensing industries. He also explores the interconnections between the cultural, political, economic, and historical factors that fueled the character’s international popularity. The Phantom Unmasked offers readers a nuanced study of the complex cultural flow of American comic books around the world. Equally important, to provide a rare glimpse of international comics fandom, Patrick surveyed the Phantom’s “phans”—as they call themselves—and lets them explain how and why they came to love the world’s first masked superhero.

In A Very Old Machine, Sudhir Mahadevan shows how Indian cinema's many origins in the technologies and practices of the nineteenth century continue to play a vital and broad function in its twenty-first-century present. He proposes that there has never been a singular cinema in India; rather, Indian cinema has been a multifaceted phenomenon that was (and is) understood, experienced, and present in everyday life in myriad ways. Employing methods of media archaeology, close textual analysis, archival research, and cultural theory, Mahadevan digs into the history of photography, print media, practices of piracy and showmanship, and contemporary everyday imaginations of the cinema to offer an understanding of how the cinema came to be such a dominant force of culture in India. The result is an open-ended and innovative account of Indian cinema's "many origins."

On Rajiv Gandhi, 1944-1991, former prime minister of India.

"A guide to the press of the United Kingdom and to the principal publications of Europe, Australia, the Far East, Gulf States, and the U.S.A.

This study describes and analyses the new social movements that have arisen in India over the past two decades, in particular the anti-caste movement (of both the untouchables and the lower-middle castes), the women's liberation movement, the farmers' movement (centred on struggles arising out of their integration into a state-controlled capitalist market), and the environmental movements (opposition to destructive development, including resistance to big dam projects and the search for alternatives). Rooted in participant observation, it focuses on the ideologies and self-understanding of the movements themselves. The central themes of this book are the origin of movements in the socio-economic contradictions of post-independence India; their effect on political developments, in particular the disintegration of Congress hegemony; their relation to "traditional Marxist" theory and Communist practice; and their groping toward a synthesis of theory and practice that constitutes a new social vision distinct from traditional Marxism.

This annual review of major events, issues, and trends in Indian affairs presents an authoritative and insightful assessment of India in 1986. Interpretive essays illuminate the causes and consequences of a tumultuous year, as leading specialists discuss Indian politics, economy, society, culture, and foreign relations. The contributors examine such important developments as the breakdown of the Punjab accord, the resurgence of militant communalism, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's faltering leadership, the dramatic heightening of Indo-Pakistan tensions, the growing resistance to economic reforms, and the impact of the video revolution on Indian culture. Filling an important gap in the literature on contemporary Indian affairs, this book will be invaluable for students and scholars of South Asia as well as for journalists, policymakers, businesspeople, and serious travelers who wish to understand current and future developments in India.