Author:Patrick French
At midnight on 14 August 1947, Britain's 350-year-old Indian Empire was broken into three pieces. The greatest mass migration in history began, as Muslims fled north and Hindus fled south, and Britain's role as an imperial power came to an end.
Patrick French's vivid and surprising account of the chaotic final years of colonial rule in India has been acclaimed as the definitive book on this subject. Journeying across India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, he brings to life a cast of characters including spies, idealists, freedom fighters and politicians from Churchill to Gandhi.
A remarkable achievement ... a huge, crowded and kaleidoscopic canvas, which the author handles with remarkable authority ... It is also enormous fun to read
—— Daily TelegraphA fine, lucid book ... vividly drawn with novel-like touches
—— Hanif KureshiBeautifully written
—— Sunday TimesFrench is a natural storyteller ... a delightful tale of intrigue, ham-handedness and just plain blundering
—— India TodayHe writes lucid, accurate prose that carries heavy freights of information lightly
—— A.C. Grayling , Independent on Sunday[Roger Osborne] impresses with another sweeping history
—— OPDDILLUMINATING AND ENGROSSING ... eloquent and revelatory
—— New York Times Sunday Book ReviewFASCINATING ... genuinely illuminating, illustrated with a wealth of compelling detail
—— SpectatorEverybody nowadays seems to take a view on Pakistan. Very few know what they're talking about. Anatol Lieven is that rare observer ... Pakistan: A Hard Country ... fills a large gap in our understanding
—— Edward Luce, author of 'In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India'The publication of Pakistan: A Hard Country could not be more timely ... illuminating as well as entertaining
—— The SpectatorWith patience and determination, Lieven observes and records all aspects of the curiosity otherwise known as Pakistan ... A sweeping and insightful narrative
—— Mohammed Hanif , The New York TimesRequired reading for anyone interested in history ... timely and thrillingly told
—— Literary ReviewSuperb...Cleopatra led an epic life, and Schiff captures its sweep and scope in a vigorous narrative aimed at the general reader yet firmly anchored in modern scholarship. The author's greatest strengths remain the lucid intelligence and subtle analysis of personality...Schiff reanimates [Cleopatra] as a living, breathing woman: utterly extraordinary, to be sure, but recognizably human.
—— Los Angeles TimesStacy Schiff draws a portrait worthy of her subject's own wit and learning...Ms. Schiff manages to tell Cleopatra's story with a balance of the tragic and the hilarious...[and] does a rare thing: She gives us a book we'd miss if it didn't exist.
—— Wall Street JournalCaptivating...Ms. Schiff strips away the accretions of myth that have built up around the Egyptian queen and plucks off the imaginative embroiderings of Shakespeare, Shaw and Elizabeth Taylor. In doing so, she gives us a cinematic portrait of a historical figure far more complex and compelling than any fictional creation, and a wide, panning, panoramic picture of her world....Writing with verve and style and wit, Ms. Schiff recreates Cleopatra's lavish courting of Antony (including one dinner in which there was a knee-deep expanse of roses and some of the attendees received not gift baskets but furniture and horses decked out in silver-plated trappings) and his even more extravagant offerings to her (including the library of Pergamum and a host of territories which gave her dominion over Cyprus, portions of Crete and all but two cities of the thriving Phoenician coast). For that matter, Ms. Schiff even manages to make us see afresh famous scenes like Antony's painful death after his defeat at the hands of Octavian, and Cleopatra's subsequent suicide.
—— The New York TimesA swift, sympathetic life of one of history's most maligned and legendary women.
—— Kirkus