Empire Lines

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“In the beginning there were two nations. One was a vast, mighty and magnificent empire, brilliantly organised and culturally unified, which dominated a massive swathe of the earth. The other was an underdeveloped, semi-feudal realm, riven by religious factionalism and barely able to feed its illiterate, diseased and stinking masses. The first nation was India. The second was England.”

So begins “Indian Summer: The secret history of the end of an empire”.

This book by Alex Von Tunzelmann, which charts the independence and partition of India, continues as compellingly as it starts.

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