Like most books which offer the entire history of a place through the centuries India: A History is a good read which covers a wide range of topics and subjects, albeit never in a huge amount of detail. It zips along with a real sense of interest and care. At times, especially early on, it becomes a little hard to follow the lists of names and places, with the sense of place and culture being drowned out. It's a flaw which gets ironed out to an extent later on, as more depth is added.

Keay has a good way with the huge scope of India's history, and this book serves as a neat way to signpost which time periods would be interesting to follow up on in more detail.

India's history is long and relatively well-documented, so this book could have been 500 pages longer, but I'm glad it wasn't.