‘A sparkling debut by an outstanding young historian’ PETER FRANKOPAN
‘Remarkable … The prose is vivid, the storytelling cinematic’ GUARDIAN
‘This book is a revelation … both original and important’ MISHAL HUSAIN
A history of modern South Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it.
A Daily Mail Best History Book of the Year; A Spectator Best Book of the Year
It is generally accepted that Queen Victoria reigned but did not rule. This couldn’t be more wrong.
A new assessment of the West’s colonial record
In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1989, many believed that we had arrived at the ‘End of History’ – that the global dominance of liberal democracy had been secured forever.
The most vivid, moving – and devastating – word-portrait of a World War One British commander ever written, here re-introduced by Max Hastings.
‘I do not want to die. The thought that we may be cut off from each other is so terrible and that our babe may grow up without my knowing her and without her knowing me. It is difficult to face. Know through all your life that I loved you and baby with all my heart and soul, that you two sweet things were just all the world to me’
A fresh, witty, accessible life of Queen Victoria. Not since Lytton Strachey has the irony, contradictions and influence of this Queen been treated with such flourish or biographical insight.
