"Joseph’s extensive of the first-person plural makes it clear whom he is writing for. That may be slightly annoying for the non-Indian reader, but doesn’t really detract from the book, and in some ways grounds it; furthermore, for Western non-Indians, it’s merely getting a taste of our own medicine. Joseph is however writing in, and explicitly pushing back against, a pernicious political environment. These findings discomfit those whose model is of a unique Indian culture and people dating back to the dawn of the Vedas and who therefore have trouble with the idea that Harappa, India’s entry in the ancient civilizations stakes, constitutes a separate tradition. (It is rather as if Remainers were to claim Stonehenge as an “English” legacy in their Brexit battles.) In this context, then, Joseph argues not just the science, but also—again, rather uncontroversially —th at Indian culture is itself, like the population, the result of diverse sources, Harappan among them."