Yasmin Khan is associate professor of history and Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford, and author of The Raj at War: A People’s History of India’s Second World War.
A 2008 Top Seller in Asian History as compiled by YBP Library
Services
"Mahatma Gandhi called the traumatic experience of Partition 'the
vivisection of India'. In this book, Yasmin Khan shows how this
operation was performed. She describes the suffering of the victims
with great sensitivity, and traces the perceptions of contemporary
observers, most of whom were at a loss when trying to imagine the
contours of the new states. To a country that took its territorial
unity for granted, the partition of India came as a rude shock; its
impact reverberates through the pages of this illuminating
book."--Dietmar Rothermund, Professor Emeritus of South Asian
History, Heidelberg University, and author of The Routledge
Companion to Decolonisation and (with H Kulke) A History of
India
"This is a compassionate and devastating book. It charts the long,
complex and often brutal processes that engulfed millions of
unsuspecting people in chaos. Few among the South Asian and British
political elite could have imagined what they were letting loose,
while many of those swept up even tangentially had no clear idea of
what it might mean. Its long aftermath still scars the
subcontinent, as India and Pakistan see each other through the lens
of carefully constructed nationalist history which feeds on the
partially understood history of Partition. This is a book for all
who wish to understand attitudes on the subcontinent
today."--Judith M Brown, Balliol College Oxford, and author of
Nehru
"Yasmin Khan makes a significant contribution to the ongoing study
of the Partition of India in this lucid account. Her eye for detail
strongly evokes the issues, personalities and events at this
crucial moment in the subcontinent's modern history. Narrative and
sharp analysis go hand in hand in a work which bears all the
hallmarks of a first-rate scholar."--Ian Talbot, University of
Southampton
"Yasmin Khan's The Great Partition vividly and memorably portrays
the sheer turmoil of decolonisation. In turning the spotlight away
from high-level politics to bitter personal experience, she exposes
the bewilderment, brutality and mayhem that followed the hasty
British decision to 'divide and quit.' This book will be a
touchstone in the retelling of one of the twentieth century's
greatest calamities."--David Arnold, University of Warwick and
Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Asiatic Society
"This is an exceptional book. Yasmin Khan has written a vivid,
authoritative and accessible account of one of the greatest human
tragedies and dislocations of the modern era. Her particular
achievement is in weaving the lived experience of Partition - the
agony, the uncertainty, the conflicting identities and loyalties -
into a broader account of the turmoil and confusion which so
gravely soured India's and Pakistan's achievement of
independence."--Andrew Whitehead, editor of History Workshop
Journal and former BBC South Asia correspondent
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