Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Forgotten Indian Famine of World War II: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II - Hardcover

Madhusree Mukerjee

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465002013 ISBN 13: 9780465002016

Publisher: Basic Books, 2010

Synopsis

A dogged enemy of Hitler, resolute ally of the Americans, and inspiring leader through World War II, Winston Churchill is venerated as one of the truly great statesmen of the last century. But while he has been widely extolled for numerous successes, parts of Churchill s record have gone woefully unexamined. As journalist Madhusree Mukerjee reveals, at the same time that Churchill brilliantly opposed the barbarism of the Nazis, he governed India with total contempt for native lives. A series of his decisions between 1940 and 1944 directly and inevitably resulted in the deaths of some three million Indians. The streets of Indian cities were lined with corpses, yet instead of sending emergency food shipments Churchill used the wheat and ships at his disposal to build stockpiles for feeding postwar Britain and Europe. Combining close research with a vivid narrative and riveting accounts of personality and policy clashes within and without the British War Cabinet, Churchill s Secret War places this oft-overlooked tragedy into the larger context of the Second World War, India s fight for freedom and Churchill s enduring legacy. Winston Churchill may have found victory in Europe, but as this groundbreaking historical investigation reveals, his mismanagement facilitated by dubious advice from scientist and eugenicist Lord Cherwell devastated India, and ultimately set the stage for the massive bloodletting that accompanied independence.

About this title

Product Description:

Unusual book

Review:

"(A) significant and - to British readers - distressing... It is a ghastly story, and the book's eye-witness accounts of the consequences for the people of Bengal make harrowing reading. Most recent western histories of the war in the east mention the famine as earlier chronicles did not. But Mukerjee's book offers the fullest account I have read...I myself have argued that Churchill's disdain for the interests of black and brown peoples besmirched his awesome wartime record. If the Bengal famine arose from circumstances beyond British control, failure to relieve the starving millions - or even to be seen to care much about them - was in substantial degree our fault."
--Max Hastings, The Sunday Times

"shocking, important study of Britain's treatment of India in the second world war."
--The Sunday Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0465002013
• ISBN 13: 9780465002016
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368