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Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India

Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India

by Shashi Tharoor
Paperback
Publication Date: 31/07/2017

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$32.99
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.

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 on to show how Britain's Industrial Revolution was founded on India's deindustrialisation, and the destruction of its textile industry.

In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain's stained Indian legacy.


'His writing is a delight and he seldom misses his target a Tharoor should be applauded for tackling an impossibly contentious subject a he deserves to be read. Indians are not the only ones who need reminding that empire has a lot to answer for.'
- Literary Review


'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

'Brilliant a A searing indictment of the Raj and its impact on India. a 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
ISBN:
9781925322576
9781925322576
Category:
British & Irish history
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
31-07-2017
Publisher:
Scribe Publications
Country of origin:
Australia
Pages:
336
Dimensions (mm):
232x153x28mm
Weight:
0.44kg
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 Leader of Tomorrow.

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