Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire - Brossura

Tunzelmann, Alex Von

Brossura

ISBN 10: 077108742X ISBN 13: 9780771087424

Casa editrice: Emblem Editions, 2008

Riassunto

The last days of the British Raj. The end of empire. A love affair between Edwina Mountbatten, wife of the last British viceroy to India, and Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister.

The stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947 liberated 400 million people from the British Empire. With the loss of India, its greatest colony, a nation admitted it was no longer a superpower, and a king ceased to sign himself Rex Imperator.

It was one of the defining moments of world history, but it had been brought about by a tiny group of people. Among them were Jawaharlal Nehru, the fiery Indian prime minister with radical plans for a socialist revolution; Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Muslim leader who would stop at nothing to establish the world’s first modern Islamic state; Mohandas Gandhi, the mystical figure who enthralled a nation; and Louis and Edwina Mountbatten, the glamorous but unlikely couple who had been dispatched to get Britain out of India without delay. Within hours of the midnight chimes, the two new nations of India and Pakistan would descend into anarchy and terror. Nehru, Jinnah, Gandhi and the Mountbattens struggled with public and private turmoil while their dreams of freedom and democracy turned to chaos, bloodshed, genocide and war.

Indian Summer depicts the epic sweep of events that ripped apart the greatest empire the world has ever seen, and saw one million people killed and ten million dispossessed. It reveals the secrets of the most powerful players on the world stage: the Cold War conspiracies, the private deals, and the intense and clandestine love affair between the wife of the last viceroy and the first prime minister of free India.
From the Hardcover edition.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

“[A] scintillating debut . . . compelling narrative history, combining dramatic sweep with dishy detail.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Indian Summer merits the highest of all praise for a history — it reads like a novel.” — Toronto Sun

“Indian Summer is a true tour de force: absorbing in its detail and masterly in the broad sweep of its canvas.” — Sir Martin Gilbert, author of The Somme

“Indian Summer is outstandingly vivid and authoritative. Alex von Tunzelmann brings a lively new voice to narrative history writing.” — Victoria Glendinning, author of Leonard Woolf

“Von Tunzelmann’s irreverent and irresistible popular history is both entertaining and illuminating.” — Los Angeles Times

“Alex von Tunzelmann is a wonderful historian, as learned as she is shrewd. But she is also something more unexpected: a writer with a wit and an eye for character that Evelyn Waugh would surely have admired.” — Tom Holland, author of Rubicon and Persian Fire

“A superb account.” — Trevor Royle, author of Last Days of the Raj

“An engaging, controversial, very lively and, at times, refreshingly irreverent tour de force.” — Lawrence James, author of The Middle Class: A History and Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India

“A great read and a fine backgrounder to today’s headlines.” — NOW magazine (5 Ns)
From the Hardcover edition.

L'autore:

Alex von Tunzelmann was born in 1977 and lives in London, England. Since leaving Oxford, where she read history and edited both Cherwell and Isis, she has worked primarily as a researcher. She has contributed to books as diverse as The Political Animal by Jeremy Paxman, The Truth About Markets by John Kay, Does Education Matter? by Alison Wolf, and Not on the Label by Felicity Lawrence. She has been recognized for her writing in several national competitions, ranging from the Vogue Talent Contest to the Financial Times Young Business Writer of the Year. Most recently, Alex has collaborated with Jeremy Paxman on his new book, On Royalty.
From the Hardcover edition.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Emblem Editions
• Data di pubblicazione: 2008
• ISBN 10: 077108742X
• ISBN 13: 9780771087424
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 480