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Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India

Shashi Tharoor

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Description for Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India Hardback. Inglorious Empire tells the real story of the British in India - from the arrival of the East India Company to the end of the Raj - revealing how Britain's rise was built upon its plunder of India. Num Pages: 288 pages. BIC Classification: 1FKA; HBJD1; HBTQ. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 150 x 224 x 33. Weight in Grams: 540.
***THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER*** In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalised racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial 'gift' from the railways to the rule of law was designed in Britain's interests alone. He goes ... Read more

Product Details

Publisher

C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd

Format

Hardback

Publication date

2017

Condition

New

Number of Pages

288

Place of Publication

London, United Kingdom

ISBN

9781849048088

SKU

V9781849048088

Shipping Time

Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days

Ref

99-50

About Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor served for twenty-nine years at the UN, culminating as Under-Secretary General. He is a Congress MP in India, the author of fourteen previous books and has won numerous literary awards, including a Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Tharoor has a PhD from the Fletcher School and was named by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1998 as a Global ... Read more

Reviews for Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India

Remarkable . . . The book is savagely critical of 200 years of the British in India. It makes very uncomfortable reading for Brits.
Matt Ridley, The Times His writing is a delight and he seldom misses his target . . . Tharoor should be applauded for tackling an impossibly contentious subject . . . he deserves to be ... Read moreread. Indians are not the only ones who need reminding that empire has a lot to answer for.
Literary Review
Those Brits who speak confidently about how Britain's 'historical and cultural ties' to India will make it easy to strike a great new trade deal should read Mr Tharoor's book. It would help them to see the world through the eyes of the . . . countries once colonised or defeated by Britain.
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times Ferocious and astonishing. Essential for a Britain lost in sepia fantasies about its past, 'Inglorious Empire' is history at its clearest and cutting best.
Ben Judah, author of 'This is London' Tharoor's impassioned polemic slices straight to the heart of the darkness that drives all empires. Forceful, persuasive and blunt, he demolishes Raj nostalgia, laying bare the grim, and high, cost of the British Empire for its former subjects. An essential read.
Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times Tharoor convincingly demolishes some of the more persistent myths about Britain's supposedly civilising mission in India . . . [he] charts the destruction of pre-colonial systems of government by the British and their ubiquitous ledgers and rule books . . . The statistics are worth repeating.
Victor Mallet, Financial Times 'Inglorious Empire' both reiterates long
standing, persuasive and well
founded critiques of the British Raj's countless exploitative activities and the damage done under colonialism, and expresses [Tharoor's] surprise and disappointment that such basic points still need to be made anew today. Chapter by chapter, the book convincingly demolishes the nostalgic, self
serving arguments voiced by imperial apologists.
Times Literary Supplement Eloquent . . . a well-written riposte to those texts that celebrate empire as a supposed 'force for good'.
BBC World Histories
'Inglorious Empire' is a timely reminder of the need to start teaching unromanticised colonial history in British schools. A welcome antidote to the nauseating righteousness and condescension pedalled by Niall Ferguson in his 2003 book 'Empire'.
The Irish Times
'[M]agnificent.'
Tribune Tharoor's book
arising from a contentious Oxford Union debate in 2015 where he proposed the motion 'Britain owes reparations to her former colonies'
should keep the home fires burning, so to speak, both in India and in Britain. . . . He makes a persuasive case, with telling examples.
History Today
`Erudite and beautifully written . . . page after page of biting critique.' 'A brilliant work . . . distinguished among this literature in its manner of presentation and dazzling arguments . . . an eye-opener and a valuable source of reference for students and others to understand India's experience under British colonialism.' Rare indeed is it to come across history that is so readable and so persuasive.
Amitav Ghosh `Well researched . . . this book is an extremely useful corrective to nostalgic imperial history and well worth reading.' Brilliant . . . A searing indictment of the Raj and its impact on India. . . . Required reading for all Anglophiles in former British colonies, and needs to be a textbook in Britain.
Salil Tripathi, Chair of the Writers in Prison Committee, PEN International, and author of 'The Colonel Who Would Not Repent' 'With telling examples and scathing statistics . . . the book is a timely and helpful antidote to other contemporary works. . . the evidence that Tharoor presents to debunk the myths about Britain's civilising mission is staggering.' Show Less

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Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India

Shashi Tharoor

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