About the Book A.L. Basham's The wounder that was Indian is a brilliant early history of one of the oldest civilisations. When it was first published in the united kingdom in 1954, it became an instant hit, as it would in United States a few years later. Since that it has consistently found an avid readership all over the world. The wounder that was India is a classic that anybody with an interest in the civilisational beginnings of India must read. It is a work of uncompromising scholarship and a labour of love.