Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia

by Sam Dalrymple

English 576 pages 2 editions

NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING FINALIST 2026 A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR IN FINANCIAL TIMES , THE WEEK , THE SPECTATOR , BBC HISTORY , NPR AND HISTORY TODAY A hundred years ago, a vast swathe of Asia-India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma (now Myanmar), Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait-was bound together under a single imperial banner: the ‘Indian Empire’, or the Raj. Stretching from the Red Sea to the jungles of Southeast Asia, this dominion was home to a quarter of the world’s population; its people used the Indian rupee and were issued passports stamped ‘Indian Empire’. And then, within fifty years, the Empire shattered. Five partitions tore it apart, carving out new nations, redrawing maps and leaving behind a legacy of war, exile and division. Sam Dalrymple’s magnificently written bestselling account, Shattered Lands , presents, for the first time, the story of how the Indian Empire was unmade. It is a history of ambition and betrayal, of forgotten wars and unlikely alliances, of borders carved with ink and fire. Above all, it is the story of how the map of modern Asia was made. Vivid, compelling and thought-provoking, this is history at its best. SHORTLISTED FOR THE EASTERN EYE AWARD FOR HISTORY, THE RAMNATH GOENKA SAHITHYA SAMMAN AND THE ATTA GALATTA BOOK PRIZE 2025