Iqbal Husain

It was a bit of a struggle to read through the chapters of this book, which is a compilation of Marx's writings on India. The material turns out to be mostly a day-to-day chronicle of the 'sepoy mutiny' or the First War of Independence, as the Indians would have it. Marx swings from a characteristically trenchant condemnation of Imperial high-handedness and capitalism's sins, to a somewhat vindictive celebration of the British forces' triumphs against the native rabble. Throughout, Marx exhibits an intimate knowledge of the local terrain and dispositions, and has specific criticisms and advice about the tactics used on the ground by the British and the native forces, and what they should have done instead. He has little to say about the larger political analysis, but one also remembers his less than complimentary description of the Asian despotisms, and how imperialism, for all its injustices, is an essential step to smashing the old structures and leading on to more modern and egalitarian systems.… (mais)

Despite its title, this book is emphatically not for someone trying to understand the basics of EVs and HEVs. It is highly mathematical, and the qualitative descriptions are thin. A good example is the explanation of Peukert's number on page 68/69. This is almost wholly mathematical with no hint of its significance (a high Peukert number is an issue in an EV battery because it means the battery won't perform as well at the high discharge rates used).

The book might be helpful to someone who was familiar with the concepts, had excellent mathematical skills and planned to build an EV simulator. I stress "might" because I do not know enough to validate the accuracy of the mathematics.

Even at a qualitative level I did not have a great deal of confidence in the book. The coverage of engine and motor sizing for an HEV in the final chapter seemed to me to be less incisive than I have encountered elsewhere, and possibly mistaken… (mais)