The Most Dangerous Place

Although the region is often regarded as peripheral to America's rise to global ascendancy the United States has long been enmeshed in South Asia. For 230 years America's engagement with India Afghanistan and Pakistan has been characterized by short-term thinking and unintended consequences. Beginning with American traders in India in the eighteenth century the region has become a locus for American efforts-secular and religious-to remake the world in its image. Even as South Asia has undergone tumultuous and tremendous changes from colonialism to the world wars the Cold War and globalization the United States has been a crucial player in regional affairs. The Most Dangerous Place presents a gripping account of America's political and strategic economic and cultural presence in the region. By illuminating the patterns of the past this sweeping history also throws light on the challenges of the future. Review Raghavan's remarkable historical command yields a definitive unrivalled account of America's long ambivalent and ultimately transforming relationship with South Asia a place of danger and treasure and a strategic prize still to be won. -- Sunil KhilnaniStarting with the Raj Srinath Raghavan's book is the first comprehensive history of the relations between the US and South Asia. It sheds new light on the role reversal between India and Pakistan as the main partner of Washington in the region. Based on original material it is a truly remarkabletour de force! -- Christophe JaffrelotSrinath Raghavan one of the very best diplomatic and military historians working on modern South Asia has written an excellent and ambitious book. Deeply researched and elegantly written the book is rich with insights on democratic foreign policy nuclear proliferation and confrontation Islamist resurgence and more-shaping the political and social bonds between the last superpower and almost a quarter of humanity. -- Gary J. BassWe finally have an outstanding and most readable long history of US engagement with South Asia thanks to one of India's preeminent contemporary historians Srinath Raghavan. -- Shivshankar MenonThis is one of the best histories of US engagement with South Asia offering a more nuanced and coherent perspective. Raghavan has burnished his reputation as India's leading contemporary historian and political analyst. -- Shyam Saran India TodayOne of India's finest modern historians . . . Raghavan's mastery has been in bringing together a vast trove of material to write this eminently readable history of the US in South Asia -- OutlookRaghavan is to be commended for the rich temporal tapestry he has woven and it is a complex yet rewarding trapeze -- Financial ExpressThe book is both sweeping and insightful . . . it is a definitive account . . . it is a fascinating story told accurately and engagingly -- Indian ExpressSrinath Raghavan's broad and detailed swathe of the US-South Asia relationship beautifully brings out the inherent contradiction in the heart of US policy -- Jyoti Malhotra PrintUnique and delightful . . . it is a wonder that Raghavan has been able to encompass so much history across the expanse of the subcontinent in under 400 pages and few details miss his archive-trained eyes -- Suhasini Haidar The HinduWith detailed accounts from various sources including the heads of state and the military and several authors and journalists from both US and South Asia the book presents an exhaustive insight into the relations between the regions -- New Indian ExpressSrinath Raghavan's superb new bookThe Most Dangerous Place A History of the United States in South Asia illustrates exactly why applied history should be part of present foreign policy deliberations -- WireRaghavan's story begins with the traders and missionaries who for much of the republic's early history were the primary source of U.S. engagement with the subcontinent . .