Readings in Early Indian History

The story opens with a shipwreck on a Pacific island of the young friends Ralph Rover, Jack Martin and Peterkin Gay

No life form has had a greater impact on this planet than the human male. What is it that has made his legacy so utterly distinct from that of all other life forms, including even the human female? Following on from the international success of The Naked Woman, Desmond Morris investigates this intriguing evolutionary success story. The Naked Man is a study of the masculine body from head to toe, examining biological features of the male anatomy in illuminating detail, and describing the many ways in which these features have been modified, suppressed or exaggerated by local customs and changes in social fashions. This is a natural history of man, viewing him as a fascinating specimen of a far from rare, but nevertheless endangered species.

As with its companion title, The Naked Man is written from a zoologist’s perspective and packed full of scientific fact, engaging anecdote and thought-provoking conclusions, including a controversial chapter examining male sexuality.

The ​brutal assasination of Commissioner Frederick Mackeson on British India’s North-West Frontier in 1853 was a bloody and public declaration of a conflict that was to stretch well into the next one hundred and fifty years. The Wahhabi tribe, extreme Islamist fundamentalists, set out to restore purity to their faith by declaring violent jihad on all who opposed them. Their history has long been forgotten and yet their vicious brand of political ideology lives on. The Wahhabi deeply influenced not only the formation of modern Saudi Arabia, but Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Their teachings educate orphan boys in Afghanistan and press rifles into their hands, for the sake of jihad.

The parallels between this pivotal terrorist network and our post-9/11 political climate are staggering. Charles Allen sheds lights on the historical roots of modern terrorism and shows how this dangerous nineteenth-century theology lives on today.