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A review by books_ergo_sum
Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India by Shashi Tharoor
informative
5.0
This book asked the question: Did colonialism benefit India in any way?
And the answer was just: Absolutely Not. **
The secret sauce of this book was its ability to teach me—a complete noob (if it wasn't in the Gandhi movie with Ben Kingsley, I didn't know it)—about India's colonial history.
And it was because this book was the complete opposite of one of those 'here's a laundry list of facts; draw your own conclusions' books. Instead, it had a suuuper tight argument (it was based on an Oxford debate that went viral online).
So all those history facts? Directly into my brain. By going through every single benefit supposedly brought by the British-democracy, newspapers, railroads, education systems, naval technology, textile industry-and ripping them to shreds...
(either because the British destroyed what was there and replaced it with something worse-like education, the textile industry, and nationalisms-or because Indians were so thoroughly excluded-like politics and the navy— that you can't say the British 'gave' them anything, or because the supposed benefit was just thinly veiled exploitation-like trains and basically all industries)
... I learned so much from this book.
And it wasn't just historical curiosity. Learning about the Partition of India and Pakistan when politicians are discussing a Two-State Solution somewhere else or historical forms of colonialism when we're questioning modern day forms of colonialism... this book felt extremely relevant.
I highly recommend the audiobook. I devoured it.
** with the exception of bringing tea cultivation and cricket to India 😆
And the answer was just: Absolutely Not. **
The secret sauce of this book was its ability to teach me—a complete noob (if it wasn't in the Gandhi movie with Ben Kingsley, I didn't know it)—about India's colonial history.
And it was because this book was the complete opposite of one of those 'here's a laundry list of facts; draw your own conclusions' books. Instead, it had a suuuper tight argument (it was based on an Oxford debate that went viral online).
So all those history facts? Directly into my brain. By going through every single benefit supposedly brought by the British-democracy, newspapers, railroads, education systems, naval technology, textile industry-and ripping them to shreds...
(either because the British destroyed what was there and replaced it with something worse-like education, the textile industry, and nationalisms-or because Indians were so thoroughly excluded-like politics and the navy— that you can't say the British 'gave' them anything, or because the supposed benefit was just thinly veiled exploitation-like trains and basically all industries)
... I learned so much from this book.
And it wasn't just historical curiosity. Learning about the Partition of India and Pakistan when politicians are discussing a Two-State Solution somewhere else or historical forms of colonialism when we're questioning modern day forms of colonialism... this book felt extremely relevant.
I highly recommend the audiobook. I devoured it.
** with the exception of bringing tea cultivation and cricket to India 😆