Pankaj Mishra is the author of Butter Chicken in Ludiana, The Romantics, An End to Suffering and Temptations of the West. He writes principally for the Guardian, The New York Times, London Review of Books and New York Review of Books. He lives in London, Shimla and New York.
Meticulous scholarship ... History, as Mishra insists, has been
glossed and distorted by the conqueror ... [This] passionate
account of the relentless subjugation of Asian empires by European,
especially British, imperialism, is provocative, shaming and
convincing
*The Times*
One can only be thankful for writers like Mishra. From The Ruins Of
Empire is erudite, provocative, inspiring and unremittingly
complex; a model kind of non-fiction for our disordered days ...
May well be seen in years to come as a defining volume of its
kind
*Scotsman*
Deeply researched and arrestingly original ... this penetrating and
disquieting book should be on the reading list of anybody who wants
to understand where we are today
*Independent*
From the Ruins of Empire gives eloquent voice to [the] curious,
complex intellectual odysseys ... of some of Asia's most educated,
thoughtful men
*Guardian*
Fascinating ... a rich and genuinely thought-provoking book
*Telegraph*
Superb and ground-breaking. Not just a brilliant history of Asia,
but a vital history for Asians
*Mohsin Hamid*
Lively ... engaging ... From the Ruins of Empire retains the power
to instruct and even to shock. It provides us with an exciting
glimpse of the vast and still largely unexplored terrain of
anti-colonial thought that shaped so much of the post-western world
in which we now live
*Financial Times*
Brilliant ... Mishra reverses the long gaze of the West upon the
East, showing modern history as it has been felt by the majority of
the world's population - from Turkey to China. These are the
amazing stories of the grandfathers of today's angry Asians.
Excellent
*Orhan Pamuk*
Jolts our historical imagination ... a book of vast and wondrous
learning and delightful and surprising associations that will give
a new meaning to liberation geography
*Hamid Dabashi (Professor of Iranian Studies, Columbia University,
New York)*
After Edward Said's masterpiece Orientalism, From the Ruins of
Empire offers another bracing view of the history of the modern
world. Pankaj Mishra [is] a brilliant author of wide learning ...
skillful and captivating narration
*Wang Hui (Professor of Chinese Intellectual History, Tsinghua
University, Beijing)*
Pankaj Mishra has produced a riveting account that makes new and
illuminating connections. He follows the intellectual trail of this
contested history with both intelligence and moral clarity. In the
end we realise that what we are holding in our hands is not only a
deeply entertaining and deeply humane book, but a balance sheet of
the nature and mentality of colonisation
*Hisham Matar*
Highly readable and illuminating ... Mishra's analysis of Muslim
reactions is particularly topical
*Tablet*
Enormously ambitious but thoroughly readable, this book is
essential reading for everyone who is interested in the processes
of change that have led to the emergence of today's Asia
*Wall Street Journal*
Sophisticated ... not so much polemic as cri de coeur, motivated by
Mishra's keen sense of the world, East and West, hurtling towards
its own destruction
*Tehelka, New Delhi*
Outstanding ... Mishra wears his scholarship lightly and weaves
together the many strands of history into a gripping narrative ...
The insights afforded by this book are too many to be enumerated
... Mishra performs a signal service to the future - by making us
read the past in a fresh light
*The Hindu, New Delhi*
[Full of] complexity and nuance
*Mail Today*
Subtle, erudite and entertaining
*Financial Express*
Mishra allows the reader to see the events of two centuries anew,
through the eyes of the journalists, poets, radicals and
charismatics who criss-crossed Europe and Asia
*Free Press Journal*
A vital, nuanced argument ... prodigious
*Mint*
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