Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition by Nisid Hajari (Engli

Description: Midnight's Furies by Nisid Hajari The searing, under-reported history of the partition of India as a dramatic, bloody crisis that remains a key historical faultline today FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description An NPR Book of the Year A Seattle Times Book of the Year William E. Colby Award Winner "A beautifully written, deeply intelligent book about [a] crucial moment." -- Fareed Zakaria, CNN Nobody expected the liberation of India and birth of Pakistan to be so violent--it was supposed to be an answer to the dreams of Muslims and Hindus who had been ruled by the British for more than a century. But as the summer of 1947 approached, Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs were heavily armed and on edge after a year of riots and gang fighting, and the British rushed to leave. Hell broke loose. Trains carried Muslims west and Hindus east to their slaughter. Some of the most brutal and widespread ethnic cleansing in modern history erupted on both sides of the new border, searing a divide between India and Pakistan that remains a root cause of many of todays most menacing security threats, from jihadi terrorism to nuclear proliferation. Based on major new sources, Nisid Hajaris revelatory Midnights Furies lays out the searing truth about one of the worlds most momentous and least understood tragedies. "Fast-moving and highly readable . . . The story of what happens when a composite society comes apart." -- New York Times Book Review "Makes the complex and tragic story of the great divide into a page-turner." -- Guardian "Engaging and incisive . . . Hajari writes with grace, precision, and an unerring eye for detail. Midnights Furies is the best of recent offerings." -- Wall Street Journal Back Cover An NPR Book of the Year A Seattle Times Book of the Year William E. Colby Award Winner Nobody expected the liberation of India and birth of Pakistan to be so Flap A Author Biography NISID HAJARI writes about Asian politics, history, and economics for the editorial board of Bloomberg View. He led international coverage at Newsweek for more than a decade and is a regular commentator on foreign affairs for the BBC, CNN, and NPR. Review An NPR Best Book of 2015 - An Amazon Best Book of 2015: History - A Seattle Times Best Book of 2015 -A Shelf Awareness Best Book of 2015 Finalist for the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award "[A] fast-moving and highly readable account of the violence that accompanied that partition...In its finest moments, Midnights Furies is the story of what happens when a composite society comes apart." -The New York Times Book Review "[A]n engaging and incisive contribution to the vast literature on partition and its aftermath. Mr. Hajari writes with grace, precision and an unerring eye for detail. Midnights Furies is the best of recent offerings." -Wall Street Journal "A pacey new narrative history of Partition which makes the complex and tragic story of the great divide into a pageturner: no mean feat." -Guardian, Best Summer Reads 2015 "A clear, accessible and compelling account of the events during partition... gifted storytelling. It is through his vivid description of small moments that Mr Hajari transforms an overwhelming event into an intimate experience...a gripping, skillfully crafted account of an awful period of South Asian history. It deserves a wide audience." -The Economist "It has often been said that this is the golden age of nonfiction books. As if to prove the validity of that statement, Nisid Hajari has offered us Midnights Furies, a compelling read, both dramatic and suspenseful . . . With the sensibilities of a novelist, Hajari artfully draws portraits of the various historical personalities involved, making the book thoroughly engaging." -Seattle Times "Hajari explores the roots of this tension in a beautifully written, deeply intelligent book about that crucial moment when Britain once again drew bad borders with calamitous consequences." -Fareed Zakaria, CNN "[A] fast-paced new narrative history of partition and its aftermath . . . One of [the books] virtues is its more balanced portrait of Jinnah." -William Dalrymple, The New Yorker "Hajaris book is a superb and highly readable account of not just the mayhem, but the political machinations that preceded Partition, including the three-way negotiations between Britain and the leaders of what were to become India and Pakistan." -The New York Review of Books "Hajari offers a ringside view of history with compelling psychological portrayals of those who made it . . . The politics of 1947-48 is so chillingly contemporary that it induces a sense of deja vu." -Times of India "[Hajari] has a riveting story to tell and he tells it well . . . The strength of this book is in its narrative, its marshalling of facts, and its objectivity in presenting them . . . And Hajaris fine ear for dialogue seldom lets him down." -The Wire (India) "[Hajari] frames the events surrounding Partition like a Greek tragedy, with epic, larger-than-life figures . . . [He] succeeds in vividly depicting the psychological scars that have dogged Pakistan and India." -Shelf Awareness "A well-researched tale of the last years of colonial rule on the Subcontinent . . . We could well be in the midst of a deadly thriller; Hajari maintains a tension t -- Review Quote "This harrowing tale of political miscalculation and misunderstanding is recommended for all readers of history, politics, and current affairs." Excerpt from Book Prologue A Train to Pakistan Ahead, the Jeeps headlights picked out a lonely stretch of railroad track. The driver slowed, then, when still about a third of a mile away, pulled over and waited. All around wan stalks of wheat, shriveled by drought and rust, trembled in the hint of breeze. Two turbaned figures emerged from the gloom, borne by an ungainly, knock-kneed camel. At a signal the five broad-shouldered men in the jeep piled out. They carried a strange assortment of objects--a brand-new Eveready car battery, rolls of wire, a pair of metal hooks with cables attached, and three lumpy, unidentifiable packages. Moving quickly, they joined the now-dismounted riders and headed for the copse of trees that lined both sides of the permanent way. When they reached an irrigation canal that ran along the tracks, several of the men slid down its banks and hid. Two others dashed forward. Each tucked one of the mysterious parcels against a rail, then carefully attached a wire to the soft gelignite inside and trailed the cable back to where the others crouched. A third man brought the pair of hooks over to a nearby telephone pole and used them to tap into the phone line. As he listened, waiting for word of the Karachi-bound train, his compatriots grimly checked their revolvers. The men were Sikhs, recognizable by their long beards and the turbans enclosing their coils of uncut hair. They had the bearing and burly physique of soldiers--not surprising given that their tiny community had long sent disproportionate numbers of young men to fight in the Indian Armys storied regiments. In the world war that had just ended two years earlier, Sikhs had made up more than 10 percent of the army even though they represented less than 2 percent of the population. The eavesdropper motioned to his comrades: the train was coming. This was no regularly scheduled Lahore Express or Bombay Mail. Onboard every passenger was Muslim. The men, and some of the women, were clerks and officials who had been laboring in the British-run government of India in New Delhi. With them were their families and their ribbon-tied files; their photo albums, toys, china, and prayer rugs; the gold jewelry that represented much of their savings and the equally prized bottles of illicit whiskey many drank despite the strictures of their religion. On 9 August 1947 they were moving en masse to Karachi, 800 miles away, to take part in a great experiment. In six days the sweltering city on the shores of the Arabian Sea would become the capital of the worlds first modern Muslim nation and its fifth largest overall--Pakistan. The country would be one of the strangest-looking on the postwar map of the world. One half would encompass the fierce northwestern marches of the Indian subcontinent, from the Khyber Pass down to the desert that fringed Karachi; the other half would include the swampy, typhoon-tossed Bengal Delta in the far northeast. In between would lie nearly a thousand miles of independent India, which would, like Pakistan, win its freedom from the British Empire at the stroke of midnight on 15 August. The Karachi-bound Description for Bookstore HMH hardcover, 2015, previous ISBN: 978-0-547-66921-2 Details ISBN0544705394 Author Nisid Hajari Short Title MIDNIGHTS FURIES Language English ISBN-10 0544705394 ISBN-13 9780544705395 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 954.042 Pages 368 Year 2016 Publication Date 2016-06-21 Subtitle The Deadly Legacy of Indias Partition Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2016-06-21 NZ Release Date 2016-06-21 US Release Date 2016-06-21 UK Release Date 2016-06-21 Illustrations Illustrations Audience General Imprint US Mariner Books Publisher US HarperCollins Publisher Houghton Mifflin Imprint Houghton Mifflin We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:98197107;

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