These two books are about two powerful regional politicalforces in India-the Shiv Sena of Maharashtra (with a focuson the city of Mumbai) and the Dravidianist parties of TamilNadu. Many readers of this journal may know these places bytheir older names: Mumbai is Bombay, and the state of TamilNadu and its capital city were once known as Madras.Both books, not coincidentally, have much to say about therise of Hindu nationalism in India, which is perhaps the mostdramatic change in the Indian political landscape in recentyears. That, indeed, is the central theme of Banerjee's book,which investigates the Hindu-Muslim riots in Mumbai in1993. Banerjee argues that the politics of Hindu nationalismprovides the context for the riots. In Mumbai, the majorpolitical force articulating a Hindu nationalist agenda is theShiv Sena (literally, the warriors of Shivaji, a legendaryMaharastrian Hindu hero).