nonfiction, history
not an easy topic to read about (wave after wave of unimaginable, senseless violence) but it seems like one of those significant periods of history that I should probably try to learn more about/learn from it. ( )

A solid narrative history, which helped me understand partition, and the mess that it caused. The first half of the book is the more interesting, the second half mostly depressing, as mobs hack each other to pieces and the 'leaders' of the various parties and nations do... nothing. So it's a bit of a let-down; the build up to partition is fascinating; the actual process of partition is mostly mindless violence, which is hard to make interesting, I'm sure.

Special bonus star for learning that Winston Churchill, yet again, managed to stick his nose into a situation he did not understand, that did not involve him, and that he could do nothing but make worse, and, naturally, did precisely that. Churchill is the twentieth century: a thin, peeling veneer of heroism stuck to stupidity, rot, and fetor. ( )