The Great Indian Phone Book

Assa Doron

Robin Jeffrey

“Superb… Reminds us how little we have explored the new landscape of opportunity, aspiration and, inevitably, disappointment that mobile phones have opened up in India… [A] lively book.”—Pankaj Mishra, Bloomberg.com

“In this fine anthropological study, Doron and Jeffrey look at how the introduction and current widespread use of the cell phone has altered life in one of the world’s largest countries… This rich study reveals much about modern India and should be read by both students and scholars of technology and South Asia.”—Publishers Weekly

“Doron and Jeffrey’s landmark study of how the humble mobile phone is changing the culture of Indian democracy in everyday life has no competitors. Their interdisciplinary analysis of popular aspirations and anxieties surrounding mobile telephones will invite and inspire comparative studies set in other emerging economies. A remarkable achievement.”—Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago

“The Great Indian Phone Book is a wake-up call for anyone intrigued by today’s network society. Engagingly written, intelligently researched, and enlivened with memorable anecdotes framed by deft exposition, it offers up a compelling and compellingly readable introduction to a subject of unquestioned significance: the remarkable emergence of the mobile telephone as an agent of change in the developing world.”—Richard R. John, author of Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications

“An engaging and informative analysis of the use of cell phones in India, a nation of over one billion people, where this small device has been a harbinger of big social and economic changes—and an enabler of unbridled entrepreneurship.”—Tarun Khanna, author of Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures—and Yours

“A comprehensive chronicle of how mobile phones changed Indian life, and in the process, India’s economy. Capitalists, ministers, boatmen, farmers, advertising geniuses, porn peddlers, political workers, and tireless salesmen populate this story. Doron and Jeffrey’s sociological take on the mobile phone as a great leveller is rich and riveting.”—Sevanti Ninan, author of Headlines from the Heartland

“A marvelous, briskly written book, combining a panoptical overview of the broader media landscape with gripping vignettes. Doron and Jeffrey write with insight and journalistic brio, making this book highly accessible to a very wide range of readers.”—Christopher Pinney, University College London

“This is a fascinating, smart, and erudite volume on how the Indian cell phone industry developed and what its extraordinary growth has meant for the country. It can serve as a kind of vade mecdum for many thousands of interested readers seeking to learn about the subject, whether as amateurs or as specialists entering a new domain.”—Arvind Rajagopal, New York University

Related Links

• At Bloomberg.com, read Pankaj Mishra’s thoughts on The Great Indian Phone Book and on the impact—for better or worse—of mobiles in India
• Browse a selection of HUP works on the foundations of modern India