The two books under review take very different approaches to explaining important aspects of contemporary India, but come to similar conclusions about its politics. The age of aspiration, by the veteran journalist and prolific author Dilip Hiro, is a collection of vignettes rather than a monograph in the classic sense; Why India is not a Great Power (yet), by the strategist Bharat Karnad, is a much more academic work, albeit a lively and often entertaining one, designed to try to change the minds of policy-makers in New Delhi.