Sign-In
Cart
Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India
Paperback
General World HistoryBritish HistoryIndian & South Asian History
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 0195393945
ISBN13: 9780195393941
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Sep 17 2009
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.88
Height: 0.80 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
ISBN13: 9780195393941
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Sep 17 2009
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.88
Height: 0.80 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Britain's precipitous and ill-planned disengagement from India in 1947--condemned as a shameful flight by Winston Churchill--had a truly catastrophic effect on South Asia, leaving hundreds of thousands of people dead in its wake and creating a legacy of chaos, hatred, and war that has lasted over half a century.
Ranging from the fall of Singapore in 1942 to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, Shameful Flight provides a vivid behind-the-scenes look at Britain's decision to divest itself from the crown jewel of its empire. Stanley Wolpert, a leading authority on Indian history, paints memorable portraits of all the key participants, including Gandhi, Churchill, Attlee, Nehru, and Jinnah, with special focus on British viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten. Wolpert places the blame for the catastrophe largely on Mountbatten, the flamboyant cousin of the king, who rushed the process of nationhood along at an absurd pace. The viceroy's worst blunder was the impetuous drawing of new border lines through the middle of Punjab and Bengal. Virtually everyone involved advised Mountbatten that to partition those provinces was a calamitous mistake that would unleash uncontrollable violence. Indeed, as Wolpert shows, civil unrest among Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs escalated as Independence Day approached, and when the new boundary lines were announced, arson, murder, and mayhem erupted. Partition uprooted over ten million people, 500,000 to a million of whom died in the ensuing inferno.
Here then is the dramatic story of a truly pivotal moment in the history of India, Pakistan, and Britain, an event that ignited fires of continuing political unrest that still burn in South Asia.
Here then is the dramatic story of a truly pivotal moment in the history of India, Pakistan, and Britain, an event that ignited fires of continuing political unrest that still burn in South Asia.
Also in
Indian & South Asian History
Great Game East: India, China, and the Struggle for Asia's Most Volatile Frontier
Lintner, Bertil
Hardcover
From $14.99
Swift Sword: The True Story of the Marines of Mike 3/5 in Vietnam, 4 September 1967
Glass, Doyle
Paperback
$15.19
The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition
Soundararajan, Thenmozhi
Paperback
$18.00
India - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
Culture Smart!
Stephen, Becky
Paperback
$14.24
The Doctor and the Saint: Caste, Race, and Annihilation of Caste, the Debate Between B.R. Ambedkar and M.K. Gandhi
Roy, Arundhati
Paperback
$18.95
Lions of Medina: The True Story of the Marines of Charlie 1/1 in Vietnam, 11-12 October 1967
Glass, Doyle
Paperback
$15.99
The Last Island: Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth
Goodheart, Adam
Goodheart, Adam
Hardcover
$26.06
The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (Pulitzer Prize Finalist)
Bass, Gary J.
Paperback
$17.10
Prophetic Maharaja: Loss, Sovereignty, and the Sikh Tradition in Colonial South Asia
Judge, Rajbir Singh
Paperback
$35.00
Koh-I-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond
Dalrymple, William
Anand, Anita
Paperback
$18.99
Azadi: Fascism, Fiction, and Freedom in the Time of the Virus (Expanded Second Edition)
Roy, Arundhati
Paperback
From $9.99
Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper
Kaur, Mallika
Paperback
$36.09
Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World's Deadliest Industrial Disaster
Lapierre, Dominique
Moro, Javier
Hardcover
$30.00
Globalizing through the Vernacular: Kothis, Hijras, and the Making of Queer and Trans Identities in India
Dutta, Aniruddha
Hardcover
$115.00
Decolonizing Anarchism: An Antiauthoritarian History of India's Liberation Struggle
Ramnath, Maia
Paperback
$18.99
Tortuous Evolution of South Asian Regional Cooperation, The: Bangladesh's Travails for Sub-Regional Cooperation
Karim, Ambassador Tariq
Hardcover
$98.00
Headstrap: Legends and Lore from the Climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling
Balsavar, Deepa
Purandare, Nandini
Paperback
$28.45
Women, Wealth and the State in Early Colonial India: The Begams of Awadh
Abbott, Nicholas J.
Hardcover
$125.00
Secret Drugs of Buddhism: Psychedelic Sacraments and the Origins of the Vajrayana
Crowley, Michael
Paperback
$21.80
Collaborators, Rebels and Traitors: Dissenters from Frontiers React to the Indian Union
Sinha, Awadhesh C.
Hardcover
$130.00
Labors of Division: Global Capitalism and the Emergence of the Peasant in Colonial Panjab
Gill, Navyug
Paperback
$32.00
Temples to the Buddha and the Gods: Transnational Drāviḍa Tradition of Architecture in Sri Lanka
Meegama, Sujatha Arundathi
Hardcover
$80.00
Zoroastrianism in India and Iran: Persians, Parsis and the Flowering of Political Identity
Buhler, Alexandra
Hardcover
$115.00
The Life of the Sixteenth Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje: Transmitting the Dharma in Exile
Wang, Meng
Paperback
$42.99
Existence and Perception in Medieval Vedānta: Vyāsatīrtha's Defence of Realism in the Nyāyāmr̥ta
Williams, Michael Thomas
Hardcover
$113.99
Defining a Nation: India on the Eve of Independence, 1945
Embree, Ainslie T.
Carnes, Mark C.
Paperback
$30.00
If 'They' Assassinate Him, Imran Khan the Last Hope: Leading The Change Amid Dark Forces
Siddiqi, Faisal I.
Hardcover
$37.99
Discovering Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu, Jain and Buddhist Thought
Long, Jeffery D.
Hardcover
$90.00
May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India
Bumiller, Elisabeth
Paperback
$19.00
Himmler's Crusade: The Nazi Expedition to Find the Origins of the Aryan Race
Hale, Christopher
Hardcover
$37.00
The Ends of Kinship: Connecting Himalayan Lives Between Nepal and New York
Craig, Sienna R.
Paperback
$35.00
The Children of Mu: Relics of the Diaspora from the Lost Pacific Continent
Churchward, James
Paperback
$18.95
The Search for the Pink-Headed Duck: A Journey into the Himalayas and Down the Brahmaputra
Nugent, Rory
Paperback
$12.99
15th August 1947 To 5th August 2019: ઇતિહાસની જ્ઞાનયાત
Ghanashyam Jayantilal Maniar
Paperback
$20.99
Merchants of Death: A Study of the International Armament Industry
Engelbrecht, H. C.
Hanighen, F. C.
Paperback
$45.99
Ancient India: A Captivating Guide to Ancient Indian History, Starting from the Beginning of the Indus Valley Civilization Through th
History, Captivating
Hardcover
$26.59
The Vortex: A True Story of History's Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation
Miklian, Jason
Carney, Scott
Paperback
$21.84
Claiming Indigenous Plant Knowledge: From Botanical Exchanges to Resource Extraction in the Indian Ocean World
McCormack, Carey
Hardcover
$105.00
A Local History of Global Capital: Jute and Peasant Life in the Bengal Delta
Ali, Tariq Omar
Paperback
$33.00
The Nepal Nexus: An Inside Account of the Maoists, the Durbar and New Delhi
Sharma, Sudheer
Paperback
$16.10
A Year in Green Tea and Tuk-Tuks: My Unlikely Adventure Creating an Eco Farm in Sri Lanka
Spowers, Rory
Paperback
$11.99
An Innovative Physician and Scientist in Britain and British India: The Life and Times of Sir William Brooke O'Shaughnessy, 1808-1889
Macgillivray, Neil
Hardcover
$110.00
Dravidian (Tamil) is the language of the Indus Valley Writing: A study of the most ancient Tamil Language
Winters, Clyde
Paperback
$18.99
The Thuggee: The History of the Thugs, the World's First Organized Gang of Professional Assassins
Charles River
Paperback
$10.24
The Mughal Empire: A Captivating Guide to the Mughal Empire in South Asia and the Impact the Mughals Had on the History of India
History, Captivating
Paperback
$18.97
Women of the Raj: The Mothers, Wives, and Daughters of the British Empire in India
MacMillan, Margaret
Paperback
From $9.99
History of India: A Captivating Guide to Ancient India, Medieval Indian History, and Modern India Including Stories of the Maurya Empire
History, Captivating
Hardcover
$28.49
Lady Sale's Afghanistan: an Indomitable Victorian Lady's Account of the Retreat from Kabul During the First Afghan War
Sale, Florentia
Paperback
$18.00