‘This is history bursting at the seams with English eccentrics and Indian gentry…the charm of Tunzelmann’s approach is to restore her cast to full and vital life’ Observer
‘A compelling narrative, sometimes controversial, occasionally perverse, never boring or unintelligent’ Spectator
Fully revised and updated for the 70th anniversary.
The stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947 liberated 400 million Indians from the British Empire. One of the defining moments of world history had been brought about by a tiny number of people, including Jawaharlal Nehru, the fiery prime minister-to-be; Gandhi, the mystical figure who enthralled a nation; and Louis and Edwina Mountbatten, the glamorous but unlikely couple who had been dispatched to get Britain out of India without delay. Within hours of the midnight chimes, however, the two new nations of India and Pakistan would descend into ana
