LogFAQs > #878111451

shadowsword87 posted...

Oh, PO, I was wondering if you could help with another book suggestion then, Indian culture. Just the basics though, because I'm white, and more importantly, American. Just sort of a jumping off point.

Well, first question here is, by "Indian", do you mean the less PC way to say "Native American", or someone who is literally from India?

I'll assume the latter because you're a damned young'un, and didn't grow up in an era when the former was way more common.

Ironically enough, I've probably read even less about India than I have China. I have precisely one book about it (more specifically, this one: http://www.amazon.com/Sourcebook-Indian-Philosophy-Sarvepalli-Radhakrishnan/dp/0691019584 ), from the same class I took in college that I mentioned earlier (and on the subject, here was the other book from that class: http://www.amazon.com/Source-Book-Chinese-Philosophy/dp/0691019649 ). I wouldn't necessarily recommend either of those books, though, because while it's been about 20 years since I've read either of them, and my impression of them then might be biased because they were required reading, but I remember them being fairly dry and not particularly interesting.

If you're coming into the subject with almost no knowledge whatsoever and are basically looking for a complete intro-primer sort of deal, you're almost better off just reading Wikipedia (despite how much people whine about it not being a valid source or how anyone can edit it so apparently everything in it must automatically be totally wrong all of the time). History articles there are usually written for the layperson, and can give a general awareness of the overview, which can then be used to investigate in more detail later (for instance, reading a Wiki article about the history of India could lead to the part about the Mughal Empire catching your eye, which in turn sends you to the article about that, which in turn could inspire you to start looking for books on Amazon about the Taj Mahal or Tamerlane or whatever).



shadowsword87 posted...

Not for RPGs, so you don't need to suggest GURPS

I was actually suggesting GURPS earlier because, at least when it comes to their setting sourcebooks, they're basically a very simplistic "History for Dummies" style summary of whatever location/time period they're referencing. You don't necessarily need to intend to use the information for roleplaying purposes to learn actual factual historical info out of, say, GURPS Imperial Rome or GURPS China or GURPS Russia. Most of those are actually pretty interesting if you're a layperson with limited knowledge of the time/area.

Then, in theory, you could use what you learn there to expand your search. So, for instance, reading GURPS Russia might lead you to be really interested in the Time of Troubles, so you might go out of your way to track down a book on that specific period. Or you might narrow your search to Romanov-era Czarist Russia, or maybe look for a biography on Catherine, or so on.

Sadly, there IS no GURPS India, though - supposedly it was actually in development at one point, but for whatever reason it never managed to get published.


(Honestly, about 90% of the reason why I bought the GURPS setting books myself was more for the history than because I wanted to use them for RP. I've also bought a number of "History for Dummies" style books for the same reason - they give a nice, basic overview of the topic. Then you can dig down into the meatier stuff yourself, like how I have "Medieval History for Dummies" but then also have multiple books specifically talking about "The Birth of the West", the Wars of the Roses, the Holy Roman Empire, and so on).


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