Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor

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About the Book

In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalized racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. In Inglorious Empire, acclaimed author, diplomat, and politician Shashi Tharoor confronts the enduring narrative that British imperialism represented a form of enlightened despotism carried out for the benefit of the governed — and systematically demolishes it.

Chapter by chapter, Tharoor demonstrates how every supposed imperial "gift" to India — from the railways to the rule of law, the English language to parliamentary democracy — was designed to serve Britain's own interests rather than India's welfare. He traces the full arc of British rule from the East India Company's arrival through the end of the Raj, showing how Britain's Industrial Revolution was built directly on India's deindustrialization and the deliberate destruction of its once-thriving textile industry. Blunt, forceful, and rigorously argued, the book strips away nostalgic imperial mythology to expose, in devastating detail, the true human and economic cost of colonial rule.

Critical Acclaim

Inglorious Empire was a Sunday Times Top 10 bestseller and a Financial Times Book of the Year. The Financial Times called Tharoor's impassioned polemic a work that slices straight to the heart of the darkness driving all empires, laying bare the grim, high cost of British rule for its former subjects and calling it "an essential read." The New York Review of Books described it as a bracing, polemical work, while the Irish Independent called it a timely reminder of the need to teach unromanticized colonial history in British schools, and the Times Literary Supplement praised how convincingly it demolishes the nostalgic, self-serving arguments of imperial apologists.

Why Choose This Book?

• A Sunday Times bestseller and Financial Times Book of the Year: Widely acclaimed as an essential, corrective account of British colonialism.
• From a globally respected author and diplomat: Shashi Tharoor served twenty-nine years at the United Nations, culminating as Under-Secretary-General.
• Rigorously researched and forcefully argued: Systematically dismantles long-held justifications for British imperial rule.
• Wide-ranging historical scope: Covers the East India Company's arrival through the end of the Raj in 1947.
• Also published in India as An Era of Darkness: A landmark, widely discussed reassessment of colonial history in both British and Indian contexts.

About the Author

Shashi Tharoor is a former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, a Congress Member of Parliament in India, and the bestselling author of more than twenty books, both fiction and nonfiction. He holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and has won numerous literary awards, including a Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and was named a Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in 1998.

Who Should Read This Book?

• Readers interested in colonial history and the legacy of the British Empire
• Students of South Asian history, political science, and postcolonial studies
• Anyone seeking a rigorously argued counter-narrative to nostalgic imperial history
• Fans of Shashi Tharoor's writing and political commentary
• Book clubs and educators looking for a discussion-rich work of historical reassessment

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Order now and bring home Inglorious Empire — Shashi Tharoor's forceful, essential reckoning with the true legacy of British rule in India.