Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition

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, show more peeling veneer of heroism stuck to stupidity, rot, and fetor. show less

This was a good follow-up to Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire, by Alex von Tunzelmann, which was also quite good. But Midnight Furies was even more thorough and more shocking. Now I can better understand the animosity between India and Pakistan, and the powder keg of Kashmir that exists to this day.

The situation is of global importance as they are both nuclear powers. And the glaciers in the Himalayas are starting to recede -- their main source of fresh water -- which could lead to water wars. This was not mentioned in the book but it's something to watch for.

Highly recommended!

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.