Vikram Sampath has done a great service by correcting a biased narrative that has coloured perceptions of Bharat's history. -- Bibek Debroy, eminent economist, author and translator
Vikram's book is a wonderful effort to [evoke] the memory of those who fought, often successfully, to defend our civilization. -- Sanjeev Sanyal, economist and writer
Vikram Sampath has single-handedly upturned the narrative on many contested issues and personalities. He now ventures into a largely uncharted territory, chronicling the contributions of fifteen 'civilizational warriors' ... [it is] another landmark work. -- Meenakshi Jain, historian and senior fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library
Challenges 'mainstream' Indian history, brings to fore stories of 15 unsung heroes ― The Print
worth reading, and substantial ― The Asian Age
Explores lives of forgotten heroes who fought to uphold their culture ― The Quint--This text refers to the hardcover edition.
About the Author
Bangalore-based historian Vikram Sampath is the author of seven acclaimed books, including Splendours of Royal Mysore: The Untold Story of the Wodeyars; My Name Is Gauhar Jaan:The Life and Times of a Musician;Voice of the Veena: S Balachander:A Biography; Women of the RecordsandIndian Classical Music and the Gramophone: 1900-1930. His latest books, published by Penguin Random House India, are the two-volume biography Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past and Savarkar: A Contested Legacy, 1924-1966. Both the volumes have gone on to become national best sellers.
In 2021, Vikram was elected as fellow to the prestigious Royal Historical Society of the United Kingdom. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi's first Yuva Puraskar in English literature and the ARSC International Award for excellence in historical research in New York for his book on Gauhar Jaan. The book has also been adapted to theatre as a play Gauhar by Lillette Dubey and is being adapted to a Bollywood film by Ashutosh Gowariker. Vikram was among the four writers and artists to be selected as a writer-in-residence at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in 2015. Vikram has a doctorate in history and music from the University of Queensland, Australia, and was a Senior Research Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. He is also an Aspen Global Leadership Fellow and an Eisenhower Global Fellow 2021. An engineer/mathematician from BITS-Pilani and with an MBA degree in finance from S. P. Jain, Mumbai, Vikram is also a trained Carnatic vocalist. He has established the Archive of Indian Music, India's first digital sound archive for vintage recordings. He is the founder-director of the Bangalore Literature Festival and curates the ZEE Group's ARTH-A Culture Fest.
