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Original Title:	An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India
ISBN:	938306465X (ISBN13: 9789383064656)
Edition Language:	English

An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

Shashi Tharoor

Hardcover | Pages: 360 pages

Rating: 4.16 | 6021 Users | 781 Reviews

Description Concering Books An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

In 1930, the American historian and philosopher Will Durant wrote that Britain’s ‘conscious and deliberate bleeding of India… [was the] greatest crime in all history’. He was not the only one to denounce the rapacity and cruelty of British rule, and his assessment was not exaggerated. Almost thirty-five million Indians died because of acts of commission and omission by the British—in famines, epidemics, communal riots and wholesale slaughter like the reprisal killings after the 1857 War of Independence and the Amritsar massacre of 1919.

Besides the deaths of Indians, British rule impoverished India in a manner that beggars belief. When the East India Company took control of the country, in the chaos that ensued after the collapse of the Mughal empire, India’s share of world GDP was 23 per cent. When the British left it was just above 3 per cent.

The British empire in India began with the East India Company, incorporated in 1600, by royal charter of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I, to trade in silk, spices and other profitable Indian commodities. Within a century and a half, the Company had become a power to reckon with in India. In 1757, under the command of Robert Clive, Company forces defeated the ruling Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula of Bengal at Plassey, through a combination of superior artillery and even more superior chicanery. A few years later, the young and weakened Mughal emperor, Shah Alam II, was browbeaten into issuing an edict that replaced his own revenue officials with the Company’s representatives. Over the next several decades, the East India Company, backed by the British government, extended its control over most of India, ruling with a combination of extortion, double-dealing, and outright corruption backed by violence and superior force. This state of affairs continued until 1857, when large numbers of the Company’s Indian soldiers spearheaded the first major rebellion against colonial rule. After the rebels were defeated, the British Crown took over power and ruled the country ostensibly more benignly until 1947, when India won independence.

In this explosive book, bestselling author Shashi Tharoor reveals with acuity, impeccable research, and trademark wit, just how disastrous British rule was for India. Besides examining the many ways in which the colonizers exploited India, ranging from the drain of national resources to Britain, the destruction of the Indian textile, steel-making and shipping industries, and the negative transformation of agriculture, he demolishes the arguments of Western and Indian apologists for Empire on the supposed benefits of British rule, including democracy and political freedom, the rule of law, and the railways.

The few unarguable benefits—the English language, tea, and cricket—were never actually intended for the benefit of the colonized but introduced to serve the interests of the colonizers. Brilliantly narrated and passionately argued, An Era of Darkness will serve to correct many misconceptions about one of the most contested periods of Indian history.

List Regarding Books An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

Title	:	An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India
Author	:	Shashi Tharoor
Book Format	:	Hardcover
Book Edition	:	Anniversary Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 360 pages
Published	:	November 15th 2016 by Aleph Book Company (first published March 1st 2000)
Categories	:	History. Nonfiction. Cultural. India. Politics

Rating Regarding Books An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

Ratings: 4.16 From 6021 Users | 781 Reviews

Piece Regarding Books An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

The Author, Shashi Tharoor, is an Indian politician and a former diplomat who is currently serving as Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha.The birth of the book is the speech made by the author at Oxford when author was invited as a speaker at Oxford Union. After praises, criticism, trolling over internet, the speech made its way in the heart of masses. The book is not his written speech; it is differ in many respects. This book is not about British Colonialism as a whole, but simply tells about

It is as much a pleasure to read Shashi Tharoor as it is to hear him speak. Quite apart from his eloquence and flawless phrasing of language, Tharoor knows how to keep his audience interested, whether he is writing or speaking. I have read his fiction work a long time ago and was very impressed. Now, this work of non-fiction is also very good. And required. Oh, how very needed is this work!Tharoor tackles the subject of British colonisation of India and its effects and aftereffects. Taking the

Tharoor is an excellent orator; well-spoken, warm and articulate, his Cambridge University speech inspired this book. What is surprising is-or, on reflection, perhaps not, is as greater a orator as Tharoor is, his writing style, although well-researched and engaging, is didactic and lacks the elegance of his vocal abilities; some of his puns lose their verve without the cadence of his voice, some of his homilies became slightly platitudinous but, with that being said, Inglorious Empire is one of

The author provides passionate rebuttals to the traditional histories of all the good things England did for it's appreciative colonies. His analysis of the English divide and rule strategy, using religious differences and the caste system, was fascinating. He also shows the lack of English investment in education and health and little regard to the welfare of the Indian people. He also shows how a great country was demeaned and devalued in the pursuit of profits.

WOW!!! What a fantastic book, a literary marvel, deserves a Nobel !!!" The creation and perpetuation of Hindu-Muslim antagonism was the most significant accomplishment of British imperial policy; the project of divide et impera would reach its culmination in the horrors of Partition that eventually accompanied the collapse of British authority in 1947."

More than Indians or any other country colonised by the British, it's important every Brit reads. Something I doubt their history books covers!

While I was reading this book, I kept thinking that one of the things people on the left could reasonably do is just make up stuff about the extent of murderousness that colonisation has involved. The reason being that it is highly unlikely anyone on the left would have the imagination to think up the horrors that were actually inflicted upon the world by the imperial ambitions of Britain or Spain or the costs to indigenous peoples in the US or Australia. This book documents horrors upon