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

Alex Von Tunzelmann

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1416522255 ISBN 13: 9781416522256

Casa editrice: Pocket Books, 2008

Riassunto

The stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947 liberated 400 million Indians from the British Empire. One of the defining moments of world history had been brought about by a tiny number of people, including Jawaharlal Nehru, the fiery prime minister-to-be; 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, however, the two new nations of India and Pakistan would descend into anarchy and terror. INDIAN SUMMERdepicts the epic sweep of events that ripped apart the greatest empire the world has ever seen, and 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. With wit, insight and a sharp eye for detail, Alex von Tunzelmann relates how a handful of people changed the world for ever.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

Here's what Lawrence James, the acclaimed author of Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India, has to say about it:
"An engaging, controversial, very lively and, at times, refreshingly irreverent tour de force. Alex von Tunzelmann has written a dramatic story, laced with tragedy and farce, and done so very well. A remarkable debut."
‘Alex von Tunzelmann quotes Stalin’s chilling words: “One death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic.” It’s to her credit, in this fine and engrossing book, that she gives those words the lie. Some of her most powerful chapters are a memorial to horrors beyond our worst imaginings’
Miranda Seymour, Evening Standard 25/6
‘The prose is lucid and witty, and the pace of the storytelling is sublimely judged, with just the right element of analysis and due attention given to the human foibles of the key players’
Daily Express 13/7
‘Political intrigue is at the centre of Indian Summer. It is a brisk, enjoyable read...One great strength is her readiness to engage with recent controversy over the role of the last Viceroy, including criticism that Mountbatten was biased in favour of Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, and against Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan’
BBC History Magazine, August issue
‘She has created a compelling narrative, sometimes controversial, occasionally perverse, never boring or unintelligent. It will be interesting to see what she tackles next; there is every reason to hope that it will be well worth reading’
The Spectator 26/7

‘Indian Summer is surely destined for Hollywood. Equipped with a handsome and flamboyant cast, Alex Von Tunzelmann has already more or less arranged the settings, designed the costumes and provided a script which flits from place to place and from character to character, deftly interweaving private lives with political events in a racy, dramatic and often humorous narrative... [Alex] has been resourceful in research and tells her story with verve and fine judgement in a colourful, virtuoso style’
Literary Review, August issue
‘In this impressive debut, Alex von Tunzelmann sets the drama of Britain’s precipitant retreat from her most highly prized colonial possession, the “Jewel in the Crown?”, against the intrigue which unfolded with the appointment of Earl Mountbatten as the last viceroy- a love triangle involving his countess, Edwina, and the first premier of free India, Jawaharlal Nehru. The author describes this rapidly developing affair, at the height of the crisis sparked by independence, while also emphasising the considerable influence it had on the partition of the subcontinent...this is a timely and provocative account of the division of a subcontinent which is now giving birth to an Asiatic economic boom, as well as proving an epicentre of fundamentalist revolution and jihad – with disturbing parallels with the events of 60 years ago”
Independent on Sunday 12/8

‘Indian Summer is a sweeping, full-bodied account of a period that, from the start, has been misunderstood and susceptible to wanton manipulation...its strength lies in the author’s astute deconstruction of the powerful cabal of personalities who shaped the subcontinents’ convulsive “tryst with destiny”.’
Sunday Times 12/8

‘The subject of Indian Summer is not the ordinary people who bore the weight of Partition, but the politicians who brought it about. Von Tunzelmann is a fluent, gifted writer, who has produced a lively account of the high political intrigue between the Mountbattens, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohandas Gandhi and Jinnah. There is no shortage of details. She goes to some trouble to suggest that the well-known attachment between Edwina Mountbatten and Nehru was a sexual one, but she has no evidence for this. What she does offer, which is of far more value, is a serious account of Edwina’s energetic and important contribution to relief work’
Independent 10/8
‘Von Tunzelmann is a fluent, gifted writer; who has produced a lively account of the high political intrigue between the Mountbattens, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohandas Gandhi and Jinnnah.’
Independent 10/8
‘A riveting account...highly researched, sharp and funny’
Evening Standard books of the year 19/11
‘A good year for books about India. The book that impressed me most was Alex von Tunzelmann’s Indian Summer – the best book I have read on the independence and partition of India and Pakistan, and pretty close to a flat-out masterpiece’
William Dalrymple, New Statesman books of the year 26/11
‘Published on the sixtieth anniversary of the transfer of power in India and the creation of Pakistan, Indian Summer is a riveting account of the personalities, drama and trauma associated with the demise of the British Empire’
TLS Jan issue
‘This is history bursting at the seams with English eccentrics and Indian gentry...the charm of Tunzelmann’s approach is to restore her cast to full and vital life’
Observer, paperback of the week, 6/4
‘Imagine Posh and Becks were sent to sort out Iraq. That’s essentially what happened 60 years ago when Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten jetted off to oversee the handover of power in India. The surprise was that they weren’t half bad at it – Dickie fair and discreet, Edwina especially diplomatic with Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian PM, with whom she had an affair. This brilliant, witty history majors on that love triangle, but relations between other key players prove almost as colourful...’
Evening Standard 31/3 (repeated in London Lite)
‘Von Tunzelmann has produced an entertaining, informative account of a terribly unknown time and place’
Glasgow Herald 5/4
‘This is a highly readable account of India’s independence from the British Empire told through the conflicts, compromises and love affairs of its central players’
The Sunday Times 21/4

L'autore:

Alex von Tunzelmann is the author of Indian Summer. She was educated at Oxford and lives in London.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Pocket Books
• Data di pubblicazione: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1416522255
• ISBN 13: 9781416522256
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 352