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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
Tharoor offers a broad scope of much untalked about colonial history in India. My eyes have been widened to see more of the damage done in the pursuit of empire. It is a sobering and informative read that puts the British Raj into perspective, allowing us to see it for what it is and not as Chinese whispers and myth let us believe. As with any broad topic, Tharoor cannot cover every aspect of British life in India, but he does touch upon some important points that illustrate the vivid reality of empire. Tharoor doesn't shy away from some positives of the empire, although understandably doesn't dwell on them too long. Overall I see it as an eye-opening read, and I don't think I can look at the myth of the British Empire in the same way again.
I think I’ve found a whole host of non-fiction books that give me a break from all the fiction I read. This book was no exception and I really enjoyed learning about the British Empire and the harm they inflicted in India over several centuries. This was another book I tabbed as I read; I reckon I might do this for all the non-fiction books I read.
Tharoor provides a extensive narrative of British rule in India and the different ways the British Empire hindered India’s progress. I rather enjoyed the inclusion of Empire apologists and how Tharoor dismisses such arguments. The most interesting parts were that of the pervasive “divide-and-rule” with particular focus on caste divisions and how they came to be cemented throughout British rule. Moreover, I appreciated Tharoor’s own appreciation of the British Empire in providing the English language, tea and cricket but he declares that whilst he is grateful for these, he is not grateful for “the exploitation, distortion and deracination that accompanied its acquisition by my countrymen”.
I have been reading this for my Masters dissertation but I would definitely recommend this to those interested in the long-lasting implications of colonialism. I would have to say that the language used sometimes is hard to understand but it definitely provides a comprehensive view of British rule in India.
Tharoor provides a extensive narrative of British rule in India and the different ways the British Empire hindered India’s progress. I rather enjoyed the inclusion of Empire apologists and how Tharoor dismisses such arguments. The most interesting parts were that of the pervasive “divide-and-rule” with particular focus on caste divisions and how they came to be cemented throughout British rule. Moreover, I appreciated Tharoor’s own appreciation of the British Empire in providing the English language, tea and cricket but he declares that whilst he is grateful for these, he is not grateful for “the exploitation, distortion and deracination that accompanied its acquisition by my countrymen”.
I have been reading this for my Masters dissertation but I would definitely recommend this to those interested in the long-lasting implications of colonialism. I would have to say that the language used sometimes is hard to understand but it definitely provides a comprehensive view of British rule in India.
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
I learnt a lot of information from this book that rightly resets the imperial narrative, but unfortunately found the structure confusing and the work often dull. I think the lack of a chronological narrative made it often hard to follow. I listened to the audiobook which was read well by the author. Would love to read more on this subject in the future, but hopefully something that’s better structured.
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Like many others, I read this book after watching Shashi Tharoor's iconic Oxford speech, 'Britain Does Owe Reparations.'
And invigorating as that speech was, this book was more so. It's a hard read for anyone who cares about the atrocities committed by the East India Company and the British crown in their modern crusades, in their search for money to be made, nations to be destroyed, people to be enslaved.
And of course, though the notion does not need the input, the validation, of a random twenty-one-year-old kid, I wanna say that Shashi Tharoor has a brilliant mind. There's a lot to be learned from him, beyond the facts and figures of British cruelty.
It is important to note that he does not intend to incite rage against the British, but only to engender an understanding of the history of a land colonized by them. Because, let's be honest, Colonial India is something most Indian kids know of, like many other important things (thanks to our education system), only at a surface level. We know it was bad, we know shit went down. But how bad was it?
Spoiler: Very.
I was horrified and disturbed, but I also understood. I think the last one is the key thing to take away from this book. We must understand the atrocities of the past, to be prepared when parasites like greed and the hunger for power, in different forms, with different hosts, raise their ugly heads from the dark pits again.
Because of course, they do not rest for long, and never in their entirety.
And invigorating as that speech was, this book was more so. It's a hard read for anyone who cares about the atrocities committed by the East India Company and the British crown in their modern crusades, in their search for money to be made, nations to be destroyed, people to be enslaved.
And of course, though the notion does not need the input, the validation, of a random twenty-one-year-old kid, I wanna say that Shashi Tharoor has a brilliant mind. There's a lot to be learned from him, beyond the facts and figures of British cruelty.
It is important to note that he does not intend to incite rage against the British, but only to engender an understanding of the history of a land colonized by them. Because, let's be honest, Colonial India is something most Indian kids know of, like many other important things (thanks to our education system), only at a surface level. We know it was bad, we know shit went down. But how bad was it?
Spoiler: Very.
I was horrified and disturbed, but I also understood. I think the last one is the key thing to take away from this book. We must understand the atrocities of the past, to be prepared when parasites like greed and the hunger for power, in different forms, with different hosts, raise their ugly heads from the dark pits again.
Because of course, they do not rest for long, and never in their entirety.
This book burns with the power of intellect married with conviction … this is erudite, well-written, thoroughly documented and persuasive history that focuses varied sources into a coherent critique of colonialism in the Indian context. Tear up your copies of Ferguson’s neo-liberal mind rot and get angry like Tharoor.
Christopher Kremmer, Sydney Morning Herald
Tharoor is decidedly disenchanted by the style of democracy bequeathed by the British … He loves several of Britain’s legacies to his country – tea, cricket and P.G. Wodehouse – but not the one that most Brits are proudest of, the parliamentary system.
Ferdinand Mount, London Review of Books
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.
The 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
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, Author of This is London
Rare indeed is it to come across history that is so readable and so persuasive.
Amitav Ghosh
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
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
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.
Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times
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
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
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
Eloquent … a well-written riposte to those texts that celebrate empire as a supposed “force for good”.
BBC World Histories
Well-referenced and full of fascinating facts, quotes and anecdotes, Inglorious Empire is a scorching indictment of British rule in India, and of British imperialism more broadly.
Green Left Weekly
[A]t once a moral indictment and a moralistic polemic, both intended to expose the ‘‘totally amoral, rapacious imperial machine’’ the British devised to plunder India.
Mark Thomas, Canberra Times
Listening to Tharoor is addicting enough, and this book, born out of his speech at The Oxford Union (which went viral) is just as captivating. Tharoor compellingly posits why the British Raj in India should never be ennobled or confused as a gift, and exposes the destructive rape of India at the hands of its colonizers.
Indulge Magazine
Inglorious Empire both reiterates long-standing, persuasive and well-founded critiques of the British Raj’s countless exploitative activities and the damage done under colonialism, and expresses [Tharoor’s] surprise and disappointment that such basic points still need to be made anew today. Chapter by chapter, the book convincingly demolishes the nostalgic, self-serving arguments voiced by imperial apologists.
Times Literary Supplement
In Inglorious Empire, Shashi Tharoor documents the realities of the British empire in India and makes a compelling case for the need to acknowledge, and, atone for, these realities.
Book Riot
I had read only a few pages of Inglorious Empire before I thought, “What a wonderful book this would be to teach from.” It’s witty and fast-paced, the what-ifs and what-might-have-beens set up to provoke discussion. And the author’s digressions, sometimes more enthralling than the topic under discussion, raise important questions about who he is [and] the country that has made him.
Robin Jeffrey, Inside Story
A brilliant work ... distinguished among this literature in its manner of presentation and dazzling arguments ... an eye-opener and a valuable source of reference for students and others to understand India’s experience under British colonialism.
Insight, Turkey
Well researched ... this book is an extremely useful corrective to nostalgic imperial history and well worth reading.
Chartist
With telling examples and scathing statistics ... the book is a timely and helpful antidote to other contemporary works ... the evidence that Tharoor presents to debunk the myths about Britain’s civilising mission is staggering.
The Daily Star, Bangladesh
Inglorious Empire is a bracing, polemical work.
Christopher de Bellaigue, The New York Review of Books
Christopher Kremmer, Sydney Morning Herald
Tharoor is decidedly disenchanted by the style of democracy bequeathed by the British … He loves several of Britain’s legacies to his country – tea, cricket and P.G. Wodehouse – but not the one that most Brits are proudest of, the parliamentary system.
Ferdinand Mount, London Review of Books
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.
The 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
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, Author of This is London
Rare indeed is it to come across history that is so readable and so persuasive.
Amitav Ghosh
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
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
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.
Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times
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
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
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
Eloquent … a well-written riposte to those texts that celebrate empire as a supposed “force for good”.
BBC World Histories
Well-referenced and full of fascinating facts, quotes and anecdotes, Inglorious Empire is a scorching indictment of British rule in India, and of British imperialism more broadly.
Green Left Weekly
[A]t once a moral indictment and a moralistic polemic, both intended to expose the ‘‘totally amoral, rapacious imperial machine’’ the British devised to plunder India.
Mark Thomas, Canberra Times
Listening to Tharoor is addicting enough, and this book, born out of his speech at The Oxford Union (which went viral) is just as captivating. Tharoor compellingly posits why the British Raj in India should never be ennobled or confused as a gift, and exposes the destructive rape of India at the hands of its colonizers.
Indulge Magazine
Inglorious Empire both reiterates long-standing, persuasive and well-founded critiques of the British Raj’s countless exploitative activities and the damage done under colonialism, and expresses [Tharoor’s] surprise and disappointment that such basic points still need to be made anew today. Chapter by chapter, the book convincingly demolishes the nostalgic, self-serving arguments voiced by imperial apologists.
Times Literary Supplement
In Inglorious Empire, Shashi Tharoor documents the realities of the British empire in India and makes a compelling case for the need to acknowledge, and, atone for, these realities.
Book Riot
I had read only a few pages of Inglorious Empire before I thought, “What a wonderful book this would be to teach from.” It’s witty and fast-paced, the what-ifs and what-might-have-beens set up to provoke discussion. And the author’s digressions, sometimes more enthralling than the topic under discussion, raise important questions about who he is [and] the country that has made him.
Robin Jeffrey, Inside Story
A brilliant work ... distinguished among this literature in its manner of presentation and dazzling arguments ... an eye-opener and a valuable source of reference for students and others to understand India’s experience under British colonialism.
Insight, Turkey
Well researched ... this book is an extremely useful corrective to nostalgic imperial history and well worth reading.
Chartist
With telling examples and scathing statistics ... the book is a timely and helpful antidote to other contemporary works ... the evidence that Tharoor presents to debunk the myths about Britain’s civilising mission is staggering.
The Daily Star, Bangladesh
Inglorious Empire is a bracing, polemical work.
Christopher de Bellaigue, The New York Review of Books
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
The sun never set on the British empire, because even God couldn’t trust the Englishman in the dark.