SHASHI THAROOR is the bestselling author of twenty books, both
fiction and non-fiction, besides being a noted critic and
columnist. His books include the pathbreaking satire The Great
Indian Novel (1989), the classic India: From Midnight to the
Millennium (1997), the bestselling An Era of Darkness: The
British Empire in India, for which he won the Ramnath Goenka
Award for Excellence in Journalism, 2016, for Books (Non-Fiction),
and The Paradoxical Prime Minister: Narendra Modi and His
India. He has been Under Secretary-General of the United
Nations and Minister of State for Human Resource Development and
Minister of State for External Affairs in the Government of India.
He is a three-time member of the Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram
and chairs the Parliament Information
Technology committee. He has won numerous literary awards,
including a national Sahitya Akademi award, a Commonwealth Writers'
Prize and the Crossword Lifetime Achievement Award. He was awarded
the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, India's highest honour for overseas
Indians, in 2004, and honoured as New Age Politician of the Year
(2010) by NDTV.
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 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 * Irish
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. Indians are not the only ones
who need reminding that empire has a lot to answer for. * Literary
Review *
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 *
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 --
Niljana Roy * 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
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 *
Rare indeed is it to come across history that is so readable and so
persuasive -- Amitav Ghosh
Eloquent ... a well-written riposte to those texts that celebrate
empire as a supposed "force for good" * BBC World Histories *
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 *
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
Persuasive and well-founded ... the book convincingly demolishes
the nostalgic, self-serving arguments voiced by imperial apologists
* Time Literary Supplement *
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