It was last book to finish that I bought at the end of my trip to India. Pleasant read that moved me through the ages of the culture. From the ancient Sangam era to contemporary times. The book was published in 2024 so it was as much up to date as I could get.
Broad landscape of history presented in the book helped me to fill in the substantial gaps that I have about history of this part of India. The book is approachable and easy to read, even despite hard Tamil names of older times. Probably my favorite part was earliest Sangam era with their poetry firmly rooted in ecological landscape of the country. Next section about era of kingdoms helped me to better contextualize what I saw in Tamil Nadu, especially in regards to monuments, temples and historical sites. Whenever I read about Madurai I thought about my visit there and especially area around Meenakshi temple.
Later chapters, about Islamic era, Vijayanagara Empire and then European colonialism connected dots between what I knew and put them through Tamil perspective. When it came to more contemporary times, it felt sometimes like hurrying through topics. Probably it is understandable due to wealth of material and unavoidable.
What I felt that was definitely missing was complete lack of including in the picture out of India Tamil communities. Nothing really much about Sri Lankan Tamils, maybe with exception of kingly excursion to the island. Even something as significant as Sri Lankan Civil War was mentioned barely and tangentially in the context of modern party politics and assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Nothing about how trade with Southeast Asia left there firmly up until today Tamil communities or later indentured labor.
Despite of this ommission it was satisfying lecture that helped me with after the trip nostalgia and strengthened my resolve to visits this part of the world again and learn even more about it.