The Proudest Day: India's Long Road to Independencre

Description

At midnight on 14 August 1947, Britain finally granted independence to the peoples of India. Throughout the world, the end of the colonial era was in sight. India was the first great domino to fall, setting off a train of events that was to spread across Asia and Africa, culminating in the collapse of the Soviet Empire. The story of the winning of freedom by the peoples of the Indian empire is one of the great sagas of the 20th century. Bathed in the rosy glow of retrospection, the birth of modern India and Pakistan has come to be regarded in the West as a great achievement, "the proudest day in Britain's history", as predicted by Lord Macauley in 1835. But how justified is the romantic popular image? Was Indian independence a noble gesture by a benevolent colonial power or was freedom wrested from the British by Indian nationalists after more than a quarter of a century of bitter struggle? Was the result a triumph or a tragedy? This book aims to set the record straight.

Anthony Read and David Fisher had extremely successful careers in television as writers and producers before embarking on their collaboration as authors. The bestselling books include The Fall of Berlin, Berlin- The Biography of a City, Operation Lucy, Colonel Z, The Deadly Embrace and Kristallnacht, for which they were awarded the H.H Wingate Prize in 1989.

A thoroughly splendid history of an exceedingly complicated subject...Read and fisher review events before the 20th century at a brisk pace, as a prologue to the great drama spread across three quarters of their book...and as the narrative proceeds towards the final act at midnight on 14 August 1947, so it becomes more scholarly. the characteristics of the principal cast are memorably presented -- Geoffrey Moorhouse * Daily Telegraph * What Indians needed in their golden jubilee year was some good old personality-driven political history of the Raj...and that is exactly what Read and Fisher have done...They have made the most eventful years of our history as fascinating as they should be * Indian Sunday Express * The narrative goes beyond the chronicling of historical fact and assumes a quality of subtle story-telling. It is well-paced, intelligent and perceptive, scripted with a measure of the assurance that bridges the best of fiction and non-fiction writing. More importantly, there is love and sympathy for its subject, a human quality is achieved only when the text goes beyond mere documentation. The quality of writing - its pungency and sense of theatre - is matched by the rigorousness of the research...One of the profound epic tales of modern world history * Financial Times *