Churchill's Secret War

WITH A NEW AFTERWORDWinston Churchill has been venerated as a resolute statesman and one of the great political minds of the last century. But as Madhusree Mukerjee reveals in this groundbreaking historical investigation his deep-seated bias against Indians precipitated one of the world's greatest man-made disasters -- the Bengal Famine of 1943 -- resulting in the deaths of over four million Indians. Combining meticulous research with a vivid narrative Churchill's Secret War places this overlooked tragedy into the larger context of World War II India's freedom struggle and Churchill's legacy. Review A bombshell book -- SCOTT HORTON ―Harper’s Magazine[A] significant and -- to British readers -- distressing book the broad thrust of Mukerjee's book is as sound as it is shocking -- MAX HASTINGS ―Sunday Times UKMukerjee not only writes well she writes from a point of view that most Bengalis and many Indians would share. Her book should be welcomed as a serious attempt to deal in all its aspects with a neglected catastrophe in an era of catastrophes piled grotesquely one on top of another -- JOSEPH LELYVELD ―New York Review of BooksAn epic indictment of British policies that cold-bloodedly caused the death of millions of ordinary Indians during the Second World War. With impeccable research Mukerjee debunks the conventional hagiography of Churchill showing 'the last imperialist's' monstrous indifference to the peoples of the sub-continent -- MIKE DAVIS author of Late Victorian Holocausts and City of QuartzThe sweep and scope of Mukerjee's work are breathtaking. She is equally at home with archival research and local oral histories. It is also to her credit that she has made masterful use of secondary literature . . . Nor is her scholarship confined to matters of political and historical detail. Thanks to her prior scientific training Mukerjee is also adept in discussing in limpid prose questions of human caloric needs for sustaining a normal and healthy existence as well as the effects of hunger on morbidity . . . Should Churchill's uncritical admirers chance on this brilliant work and actually read it they might discover that their demigod sinned mightily against his fellow human beings -- SUMIT GANGULY ―Current History[Mukerjee] sharpens her point by drawing provocative analogies.Churchill's Secret War is convincing -- ADAM KIRSCH ―New York Times Book ReviewMukerjee has researched this forgotten holocaust with great care and forensic rigour. Her calmly phrased but searing account of imperial brutality will shame admirers of the Greatest Briton and horrify just about everybody else -- CHANDAK SENGOOPTA ―The IndependentAn important though uncomfortable lesson for readers who think they know the heroes and villains of World War II ―KIRKUS REVIEWS[W]ell-researched. This gripping account of historical tragedy is a useful corrective to fashionable theories of benign imperial rule arguing that a brutal rapaciousness was the very soul of the Raj ―PUBLISHERS WEEKLYChurchill's Secret War is a major work of historical scholarship which reveals that one of the 20th century's greatest heroes was also one of its greatest villains. Mukerjee's elegant precise prose and meticulous research make her tale of colonial brutality all the more gripping and horrific -- JOHN HORGAN author of The End of WarJust occasionally . . . a book really does alter your view of the world so much so that you insist others read it and sometimes foist it on them as a gift. This has just happened to me with Madhusree Mukerjee's account of the Bengal Famine titledChurchill's Secret War. I've been absorbed and shaken by it. I don't think anyone who reads Mukerjee can ever see Churchill in the same light again . . . Hundreds of thousands of new titles are published across the world every year in the English language alone. Other than to their authors it would make very little differe