Skip to content
GK24
Prime
Books & AuthorsEasy

The ancient Indian treatise 'Arthashastra' was composed by

  1. A.Chandragupta Maurya
  2. B.Kalidasa
  3. C.Kautilya
  4. D.Megasthenes

Correct answer

C. Kautilya

Explanation

The correct answer is C, Kautilya. Kautilya, also known as Chanakya and as Vishnugupta, was the minister and guide of Chandragupta Maurya, and his Arthashastra is a manual of statecraft that deals with the duties of a king, the organisation of the treasury, taxation, trade, spying, law and war; it is the earliest Indian work usually placed under economics and politics together. Option A is wrong because Chandragupta Maurya was the ruler served by Kautilya and not the author. Option B is wrong because Kalidasa was the Sanskrit poet and dramatist of works such as Abhijnanasakuntalam and Meghadutam. Option D is wrong because Megasthenes was the Greek ambassador at the Mauryan court whose own account of India was called Indica, a different book altogether. The Arthashastra was rediscovered in 1905 by R. Shamasastry, who found a manuscript of it in Mysore and published it.

Read the full article: Books on Economics and Politics and Their Authors

Practice Questions

View all
Q1.Books & AuthorsEasy

The book 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' was written by

  1. A.David Ricardo
  2. B.Adam Smith
  3. C.Thomas Malthus
  4. D.John Stuart Mill
Show answer
Correct answer: B. Adam Smith

The Scottish thinker Adam Smith published this book in 1776, and it is treated as the starting point of economics as a separate subject, which is why he is called the father of economics; its most quoted idea is the invisible hand, by which the self-interest of individuals is said…

Q2.Books & AuthorsMedium

The theory of the drain of wealth from India was explained in the book 'Poverty and Un-British Rule in India' written by

  1. A.Gopal Krishna Gokhale
  2. B.Dadabhai Naoroji
  3. C.R. C. Dutt
  4. D.Mahadev Govind Ranade
Show answer
Correct answer: B. Dadabhai Naoroji

Dadabhai Naoroji, honoured as the Grand Old Man of India and the first Indian to be elected to the British House of Commons, brought together his writings in this book and showed with figures that a large part of India's wealth was being carried away to Britain every year through…

Q3.Books & AuthorsEasy

'Das Kapital' is the work of

  1. A.Friedrich Engels
  2. B.Karl Marx
  3. C.Vladimir Lenin
  4. D.Friedrich Hayek
Show answer
Correct answer: B. Karl Marx

Karl Marx published the first volume of Das Kapital in 1867 as his full critique of the capitalist mode of production, built around surplus value and the exploitation of labour; the later volumes were edited and brought out by Friedrich Engels after Marx died.

Q4.Books & AuthorsMedium

'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money', published in 1936, was written by

  1. A.Alfred Marshall
  2. B.John Maynard Keynes
  3. C.Paul Samuelson
  4. D.Milton Friedman
Show answer
Correct answer: B. John Maynard Keynes

Written during the Great Depression and published in 1936, this book argued that an economy can settle at a level of high unemployment on its own, and that the remedy is to raise effective demand through government spending; it created macroeconomics as we know it and the whole school called…

Q5.Books & AuthorsMedium

The book 'The Prince', which separates politics from morality, was written by

  1. A.Thomas Hobbes
  2. B.Niccolo Machiavelli
  3. C.John Locke
  4. D.Montesquieu
Show answer
Correct answer: B. Niccolo Machiavelli

The Florentine writer Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513 and it was published in 1532; it advises a ruler to judge an action by whether it preserves the state rather than by whether it is virtuous, and for this it is called the first work of modern political realism and…