Perspectives on Modern South Asia presents an exciting core collection of essays drawn from anthropology, literary and cultural studies, history, sociology, economics, and political science to reveal the complexities of a region that is home to a fifth of humanity. The book: -Presents an interdisciplinary overview of the origins and development of the eight nations comprising modern South Asia: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka -Explores South Asia’s common cultures, languages and religions and their relationship to its ethnic and national differences -Features essays that provide understandings of the central dynamics of South Asia as an important cultural, political, and economic region of the world