'All those interested in South Asia and its complex politics and culture should read this book' - Pankaj MishraThe demise of Pakistan - a country with a reputation for volatility, brutality and radical Islam - is regularly predicted. But things rarely turn out as expected, as renowned journalist Declan Walsh knows well. Over a decade covering the country, his travels took him from the raucous port of Karachi to the gilded salons of Lahore to the lawless frontier of Waziristan, encountering Pakistanis whose lives offer a compelling portrait of this land of contradictions.He meets a crusading lawyer who risks her life to fight for society's most marginalised, taking on everyone including the powerful military establishment; an imperious chieftain spouting poetry at his desert fort; a roguish politician waging a mini-war against the Taliban; and a charismatic business tycoon who moves into politics and seems to be riding high - till he takes up the wrong cause. Lastly, Walsh meets a spy whose orders once involved following him, and who might finally be able to answer the question that haunts him: why the Pakistanis suddenly expelled him from their country.Intimate and complex, unravelling the many mysteries of state and religion, this formidable book offers an arresting account of life in a country that, often as not, seems to be at war with itself.'Thrilling, big-hearted' - Memphis Barker, Daily Telegraph'Sets a new benchmark for non-fiction about the complex palace of mirrors that is Pakistan' - William Dalrymple Read more

Every negotiated settlement between the State of Israel and its Palestinian adversaries has failed to establish a stable and lasting peace. This is the history of what was attempted, why those failures were inevitable, and what must be done instead.Every new American President has a plan to bring about peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and every one fails.Every “peace process” has failed in its primary objective: to establish a stable and lasting accord between the two parties, such that they can live together side-by-side in friendship rather than enmity.But why? And what can be done instead?While this failure is a consistent pattern stretching back decades, there is virtually no public discussion or even basic understanding of the primary reason for this failure.The Palestinian Delusion is unique in situating the Israeli/Palestinian conflict within the context of the global jihad that has found renewed impetus in the latter portion of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. Briskly recounting the tumultuous history of the “peace process,” Robert Spencer demonstrates that the determination of diplomats, policymakers, and negotiators to ignore this aspect of the conflict has led the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the world down numerous blind alleys. This has often only exacerbated, rather than healed, this conflict.The Palestinian Delusion offers a general overview of the Zionist settlement of Palestine, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the Arab Muslim reaction to these events. It explores the dramatic and little-known history of the various peace efforts—showing how and why they invariably broke down or failed to be implemented fully. The Palestinian Delusion also provides shocking evidence from the Palestinian media, as well as statements from the Palestinian leadership, showing that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will never work.But there is still cause for hope. Spencer delineates a realistic, viable alternative to the endless and futile “peace process,” that shows how the Jewish State and the Palestinian Arabs can truly coexist in peace—without illusions or unrealistic expectations. Read more

Mohammad Ali Jinnah was for Pakistan what Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru combined were for modern India—inspirational father and first head of state. Jinnah began his career as the Indian National Congress’s ‘Ambador of Hindu-Muslim Unity’ but ended it forty years later as the architect of the partition that split Pakistan away from India. This authoritative and uniquely insightful biography explores the fascinating public and private life of this eminently powerful but little understood leader who changed the map of the Asian subcontinent. Portraying Jinnah’s story in all of its human complexity. Wolpert begins in the late nineteenth century with Jinnah’s early life as a provincial country-boy in Karachi and follows him to London where he studied law and became a British barrister. to India in 1896, Jinnah rapidly ascended the dual ladders of Indian law and politics, climbing to the top rung of each. By the 1920s, however, it appeared that Jinnah’s political career was at an end, superseded by the rise of Gandhi’s leader and the movement of India in a more revolutionary direction. Yet, Jinnah was to remain a pivotal figure in the turbulent decades that followed, as India struggled for independence from British rule amid growing Hindu-Muslim antagonism. Wolpert vividly recounts how the tragic clash of personalities and party platforms that initially pitted Jinnah against Gandhi escalated from a personal rivalry into a conflict of national and international proportions. Wolpert shows how Jinnah’s shrewd and skillful leader combined brilliant advocacy and singular tenacity to win his suit for the creation of Pakistan on behalf of the ‘Muslim nation’—his sole client during the last, lonely, pain-filled decade of his life. Read more

A SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLERSHORTLISTED FOR THE WESTMINSTER BOOK AWARDSA TABLET BOOK OF THE YEAR'One of the best memoirs I've read in years’ SATHNAM SANGHERA‘Beautifully written, emotional and deeply personal, yet universal … One can't help but be moved by this story of upheaval and transformation’ SADIQ KHANAn extraordinary family memoir from acclaimed newsreader and journalist, Mishal Husain, uncovering the story of her grandparents' lives amidst empire, political upheaval and partition.‘I witnessed the dwindling glow of the British Empire. I saw small men entrusted with great jobs, playing with the destiny of millions’The lives of Mishal Husain’s grandparents changed forever in 1947, as the new nation states of India and Pakistan were born. For years she had a partial story, a patchwork of memories and anecdotes: hurried departures, lucky escapes from violence and homes never seen again.Decades later, the fragment of an old sari sent Mishal on a journey through time, using letters, diaries, memoirs and audio tapes to trace four lives shaped by the Raj, a world war, independence and partition.Mumtaz rejects the marriage arranged for him as he forges a life with Mary, a devout Catholic from an Anglo-Indian family, while Tahirah and Shahid watch the politics of pre-partition Delhi unfold at close quarters. As freedom comes, bonds fray and communities are divided, leaving two couples to forge new identities, while never forgetting the shared heritage of the past.‘Husain has written an arresting family memoir … her explanation of partition is more level-headed than that of many professional historians’ THE TIMES‘A spectacular achievement. It is an incisive and carefully researched historical account, and as moving and true a personal narrative’ GUARDIAN'[Husain] has managed to make such a complex story so accessible' OBSERVER‘I was so moved by this stirring and deeply moving account that is at once a love story as well as a chronicle of one of the most cataclysmic events in South Asia’ BARKHA DUTT'Like silks in the precious fragment of the heirloom sari of its title, Broken Threads is woven from rich sources. It is a beautiful book, informed and informative, cool and factual, poetic and elegiac' FINANCIAL TIMES‘A deeply engrossing book … I was completely gripped by it’ INDIA KNIGHTMishal Husain's book 'Broken Threads' was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 2024-06-10. Read more

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024Raw and radical, strange and beguiling - a love letter to Britain's breathtaking flatlands, from Orford Ness to Orkney, and a reckoning with the painful, hidden histories they contain'Expansive and arresting' Financial Times'Sharp, subtle and very moving' Robert MacfarlaneNoreen Masud has always loved flat landscapes - their stark beauty, their formidable calm, their refusal to cooperate with the human gaze. They reflect her inner world: the 'flat place' she carries inside herself, emotional numbness and memory loss as symptoms of childhood trauma. But as much as Britain's landscapes provide solace for suffering, they are also uneasy places for a Scottish-Pakistani woman, representing both an inheritance and a dispossession.Pursuing this paradox across the wide open plains that she loves, Noreen weaves her impressions of the natural world with the poetry, folklore and history of the land, and with recollections of her own early life, rendering a startlingly strange, vivid and intimate account of a post-traumatic, post-colonial landscape - a seemingly flat and motionless place which is nevertheless defiantly alive.'Beautifully written and elegantly constructed' Kamila Shamsie'A Flat Place reminds us that there is hope in the smallest of gestures' Sara AhmedSHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2024SHORTLISTED FOR THE ONDAATJE PRIZE 2024SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARD 2024BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 ACCORDING TO THE GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES, NEW YORKER Read more

The electrifying story of India’s struggle for independence, told in this classic account (first published in 1975) by two fine journalists who conducted hundreds of interviews with nearly all the surviving participants – from Mountbatten to the assassins of Mahatma Gandhi.On 14 August 1947 one-fifth of humanity claimed their independence from the greatest empire history has ever seen. But 400 million people were to find that the immediate price of freedom was partition and war, riot and murder. In this superb reconstruction, Collins and Lapierre recount the eclipse of the fabled British Raj and examine the roles enacted by, among others, Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Mountbatten in its violent transformation into the new India and Pakistan.This is the India of Jawaharlal Nehru, heart-broken by the tragedy of the country’s division; of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a Moslem who drank, ate pork and rarely entered a mosque, yet led 45 million Muslims to nationhood; of Gandhi, who stirred a subcontinent without raising his voice; of the last viceroy, Mountbatten, beseeched by the leaders of an independent India to take back the powers he’d just passed to them. Read more

KANDAK, from Patrick Hennessey, author of the TV Book Club pick, The Junior Officers' Reading Club, is 'a rich depiction of life and death, love and sorrow ... read this brilliant book' Evening StandardWhen Patrick Hennessey returned home from Afghanistan, he left behind him the surreal intensity and exhilaration of battle. He also left behind lasting bonds of friendship formed with his Afghan comrades Qiam, Syed and Majhib. Kandak is the story of how, in the heat of the moment between living and dying, unlikely alliances can be forged. Patrick Hennessey tells of their awkward first meetings, mutual suspicion and incomprehension, and how this eventually turned into brotherhood. 'A passionate tribute to the Afghan soldiers he fought alongside in Helmand ... excellent' Sunday Times'This beautifully-written sequel to his first book tells us much about the bonds forged by combat in the dust and heat and danger, when there was no "them and us"' Mail on Sunday'His prose is lean and muscular, characterised by dry wit and acute intelligence. He also has a novelist's eye for the vivid image and the telling detail' Daily Mail'An erudite account ... this topical book, beautifully written, gives important insights at a crucial time in Afghanistan's transition' Daily TelegraphPatrick Hennessey was born in 1982 and educated at Berkhamsted School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read English. He joined the Army and served from 2004 to 2009 as an officer in The Grenadier Guards. In between guarding towers, castles and palaces he worked in the Balkans, Africa, South East Asia, the Falkland Islands and deployed on operational tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. On leaving the Army he wrote his first book The Junior Officers' Reading Club. He is now a barrister. Read more

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024SHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2024SHORTLISTED FOR THE ONDAATJE PRIZE 2024BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 ACCORDING TO THE GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES, NEW YORKER Raw and radical, strange and beguiling - a love letter to Britain's breathtaking flatlands, from Orford Ness to Orkney, and a reckoning with the painful, hidden histories they contain'Expansive, arresting, with sly humour... Masud establishes herself as a significant chronicler of personal and national experience' Financial Times'Noreen Masud fathoms the depths of flat landscapes - sharp, subtle and very moving' Robert Macfarlane'Haunting and generous, beautifully written - this book is a gift' Preti Taneja'A Flat Place reminds us that there is hope in the smallest of gestures' Sara AhmedNoreen Masud has always loved flatlands. Her earliest memory is of a wide, flat field glimpsed from the back seat of her father's car in Lahore. As an adult in Britain she has discovered many more flat landscapes to love: Orford Ness, the Cambridgeshire Fens, Morecambe Bay, Orkney. These bare, haunted expanses remind her of the flat place inside herself: the place created by trauma.Noreen suffers from complex post-traumatic stress disorder: the product of a profoundly disrupted and unstable childhood. It flattens her emotions, blanks out parts of her memory, and colours her world with anxiety. Undertaking a pilgrimage around Britain's flatlands, seeking solace and belonging, she weaves her impressions of the natural world with poetry, folklore and history, and with recollections of her own early life.Noreen's British-Pakistani heritage makes her a partial outsider in these landscapes: both coloniser and colonised, inheritor and dispossessed. Here violence lies beneath the fantasy of pastoral innocence, and histories of harm are interwoven with nature's power to heal. Here, as in her own family history, are many stories that resist the telling. She pursues these paradoxes fearlessly across the flat, haunted spaces she loves, offering a startlingly strange, vivid and intimate account of the land beneath her feet. Read more

We in the west share a common narrative of world history. But our story largely omits a whole civilization whose citizens shared an entirely different narrative for a thousand years.In Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as the Islamic world saw it, from the time of Mohammed to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and beyond. He clarifies why our civilizations grew up oblivious to each other, what happened when they intersected, and how the Islamic world was affected by its slow recognition that Europe—a place it long perceived as primitive and disorganized—had somehow hijacked destiny. Read more

After centuries of British rule, nobody expected Indian Independence and the birth of Pakistan to be so bloody – they were supposed to be the answer to the dreams of Muslims and Hindus. Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi’s protégé and the political leader of India, believed Indians were an inherently nonviolent, peaceful people. Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a secular lawyer, not a firebrand. But in August 1946, exactly a year before Independence, Calcutta erupted in street-gang fighting. A cycle of riots – targeting Hindus, then Muslims, then Sikhs – spiralled out of control. As the summer of 1947 approached, all three groups were heavily armed and on edge, and the British rushed to leave. All hell let loose. Trains carried Muslims west and Hindus east to their slaughter. Some of the most brutal and widespread ethnic cleansing in modern history erupted on both sides of the new border, carving a gulf between India and Pakistan that remains a root cause of many evils. From jihadi terrorism to nuclear proliferation, the searing tale told in Midnight’s Furies explains all too many of the headlines we read today. Read more

‘He is an absolute hero’. Piers Morgan 'A riveting, unvarnished and wholly unforgettable portrait of America’s most storied commandos at war.' - Joby Warrick, author of Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction   A stirringly evocative, thought-provoking, and often jaw-dropping account of SEAL Team Operator Robert O’Neill’s awe-inspiring 400-mission career. O’Neill describes his idyllic childhood in Butte, Montana; his impulsive decision to join the SEALs; the arduous evaluation and training process; and the even tougher gauntlet he had to run to join the SEALs’ most elite unit.The Operatordescribes the nonstop action of O’Neill’s deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, evoking the black humor of years-long combat, and reveals firsthand details of the most discussed anti-terrorist operation in military history.   Read more

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER‘Stands out for its judicious and unsparing look at events from a British perspective’ Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday TimesBetween January and August 1947 the conflicting political, religious and social tensions in India culminated in independence from Britain and the creation of Pakistan; in Partition, Barney White-Spunner shines a light on those turbulent months. This period saw the end of ninety years of the British Raj, and the effective power of the Maharajahs, as the Congress Party established itself, commanding a democratic government in Delhi. It also witnessed the rushed creation of Pakistan as a country in two halves whose capitals were 2000 kilometres apart. From September to December 1947 the euphoria surrounding independence dissipated into shame and incrimination; nearly one million people died and countless more lost their homes and their livelihoods as partition was realised. The events of those months would dictate the history of South Asia for the next seventy years, leading to three wars, countless acts of terrorism, polarisation around the Cold War powers and to two nations with millions living in poverty spending disproportionate amounts on their military. The legacy of decisions taken that year still continues. Those at the centre became some of the most enduring characters of the twentieth century. Gandhi and Nehru enjoyed almost saint-like status in India, and still do, while Jinnah is lionised in Pakistan. The British cast, from Churchill to Attlee and Mountbatten, find their contribution praised and damned in equal measure. Yet it is not only the national players whose stories fascinate. Many ordinary people who witnessed the events of that year are still alive and have a clear recollection of the excitement and the horror.Illustrating the story of 1947 with their experiences, Partition brings this terrible era for the Indian subcontinent vividly to life.   Read more

This book tells the story of the tragic and often tormented relationship between the United States and Pakistan. Pakistan's internal troubles have already threatened US security and international peace, and Pakistan's rapidly growing population, nuclear arsenal, and relationships with China and India will continue to force it upon America's geostrategic map in new and important ways over the coming decades. This book explores the main trends in Pakistani society that will help determine its future; traces the wellsprings of Pakistani anti-American sentiment through the history of US-Pakistan relations from 1947 to 2001; assesses how Washington made and implemented policies regarding Pakistan since the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001; and analyzes how regional dynamics, especially the rise of China, will likely shape US-Pakistan relations. It concludes with three options for future US strategy, described as defensive insulation, military-first cooperation, and comprehensive cooperation. Read more

Winner of the the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction'Spellbinding ... a magisterial account of the great tragedy of our age ... it is a classic' Evening Standard'In the finest traditions of American investigative journalism' The Times'Spectacular ... makes Bourne movies pale in comparison' Financial TimesFrom the Pulitzer Prize winning of the acclaimed Ghost Wars, this is the full story of America's grim involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2016. In the wake of the terrible shock of 9/11, the C.I.A. scrambled to work out how to destroy Bin Laden and his associates. The C.I.A. had long familiarity with Afghanistan and had worked closely with the Taliban to defeat the Soviet Union there. A tangle of assumptions, old contacts, favours and animosities were now reactivated. Superficially the invasion was quick and efficient, but Bin Laden's successful escape, together with that of much of the Taliban leadership, and a catastrophic failure to define the limits of NATO's mission in a tough, impoverished country the size of Texas, created a quagmire which lasted many years.At the heart of the problem lay 'Directorate S', a highly secretive arm of the Pakistan state which had its own views on the Taliban and Afghanistan's place in a wider competition for influence between Pakistan, India and China, and which assumed that the U.S.A. and its allies would soon be leaving. Steve Coll's remarkable new book tells a powerful, bitter story of just how badly foreign policy decisions can go wrong and of many lives lost. Read more

UPDATED FOR THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF PARTITION 'Puri does profound and elegant work bringing forgotten narratives back to life. It's hard to convey just how important this book is' Sathnam Sanghera 'The most humane account of partition I've read ... We need a candid conversation about our past and this is an essential starting point' Nikesh Shukla, Observer'Thanks to Ms. Puri and others, [that] silence is giving way to inquisitive-and assertive-voices. In Britain, at least, the partitioned have learned to speak frankly of the past-and to search for ways to reckon with it' Wall Street Journal________________________Newly revised for the seventy-fifth anniversary of partition, Kavita Puri conducts a vital reappraisal of empire, revisiting the stories of those collected in the 2017 edition and reflecting on recent developments in the lives of those affected by partition.The division of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 into India and Pakistan saw millions uprooted and resulted in unspeakable violence. It happened far away, but it would shape modern Britain.Dotted across homes in Britain are people who were witnesses to one of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century. But their memory of partition has been shrouded in silence. In her eye-opening and timely work, Kavita Puri uncovers remarkable testimonies from former subjects of the Raj who are now British citizens - including her own father. Weaving a tapestry of human experience over seven decades, Puri reveals a secret history of ruptured families and friendships, extraordinary journeys and daring rescue missions that reverberates with compassion and loss. It is a work that breaks the silence and confronts the difficult truths at the heart of Britain's shared past with South Asia. Read more

Ahmed Rashid, author of Descent Into Chaos and Taliban, charts the latest developments in the dangerous trajectory of one of the world's most strategically important, and volatile, countries - and the effects on its neighbours and us all'An expert's examination of the volatile region that gives the world's policy-makers their biggest nightmare' Christina Lamb, Sunday Times What does the future hold for the world's most unstable region? With Bin Laden dead, Pakistan threatened by internal power struggles and the US and Britain beginning withdrawal from Afghanistan, there is no better guide the possibilities - and dangers -than Ahmed Rashid. In his follow-up to Descent into Chaos, he examines the changing casts of characters in this story, the future of the Taliban and international terrorism, and the political manoeuvring both within Pakistan and Afghanistan and among Western allies, offering a way forward for all countries involved.Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore, who has covered Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia for a variety of publications since 1979. He is the author of five books - the best selling Taliban, Descent into Chaos: The US and the Disaster in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, Jihad and The Resurgence of Central Asia. He writes for the Financial Times, the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, , BBC Online and Pakistani publications. Foreign Policy magazine chose him as one of the world's most important 100 Global Thinkers in 2009 and 2010. In 2008 he won Spain's prestigious Casa Asia prize for contributing most about Asia to the Spanish people.The following year he was presented with the prize for best columnist in the Spanish press by King Juan Carlos at a dinner honoring him. In December 2009 he was appointed a member of the board of New York's Committee to Protect Journalists. He has also served on the Board of Advisers for the International Committee of the Red Cross for five years. His books have won numerous prizes. His website is: www.ahmedrashid.com'This excellent book provides a much-needed update on what has happened in Afghanistan and Pakistan ... Rashid has an eye for the big picture as well as a journalist's nose for detail' Daily Telegraph'A powerful and pacey primer' Spectator'A meticulous, reliable and authoritative chronicler ... Unlike many journalists Rashid has the courage to outline how he believes the catastrophic situation in his homeland (Pakistan) and its neighbour, Afghanistan, can be improved' Jason Burke, Observer Read more