** THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER ** A Best Book of 2025 for the Financial Times The Week
Spectator BBC History Magazine and NPR 'A sparkling debut by an outstanding young historian'
PETER FRANKOPAN 'Remarkable ... The prose is vivid the storytelling cinematic' GUARDIAN 'This
book is a revelation ... both original and important' MISHAL HUSAIN A history of modern South
Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it. As recently as 1928 a vast swathe of Asia
- India Pakistan Bangladesh Burma Nepal Bhutan Yemen Oman the UAE Qatar Bahrain and
Kuwait - were bound together under a single imperial banner an entity known officially as the
'Indian Empire' or more simply as the Raj. It was the British Empire's crown jewel a vast
dominion stretching from the Red Sea to the jungles of Southeast Asia home to a quarter of the
world's population and encompassing the largest Hindu Muslim Sikh and Zoroastrian communities
on the planet. Its people used the Indian rupee were issued passports stamped 'Indian Empire'
and were guarded by armies garrisoned in forts from the Bab el-Mandeb to the Himalayas And then
in the space of just fifty years the Indian Empire shattered. Five partitions tore it apart
carving out new nations redrawing maps and leaving behind a legacy of war exile and
division. Shattered Lands for the first time presents the whole story of how the Indian
Empire was unmade. How a single sprawling dominion became twelve modern nations. How maps were
redrawn in boardrooms and on battlefields by politicians in London and revolutionaries in
Delhi by kings in remote palaces and soldiers in trenches. Its legacies include civil war in
Burma and ongoing insurgencies in Kashmir Baluchistan and Northeast India and the Rohingya
genocide. It is a history of ambition and betrayal of forgotten wars and unlikely alliances
of borders carved with ink and fire. And above all it is the story of how the map of modern
Asia was made. Sam Dalrymple's stunning history is based on deep archival research previously
untranslated private memoirs and interviews in English Hindi Urdu Bengali Punjabi Konyak
Arabic and Burmese. From portraits of the key political players to accounts of those swept up
in these wars and mass migrations Shattered Lands is vivid compelling thought-provoking
history at its best. ** Shattered Lands is being translated into four languages (Bengali
Marathi Malayalam and Hindi) and was shortlisted for the Eastern Eye Award for History the
Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman and Atta Galatta prizes. ** 'A stunning achievement. Shattered
Lands reframes the story of South Asia with rare empathy and elegance breathing life into the
legacies of the partitions that shape a quarter of our world today' THANT MYINT-U 'This richly
researched vividly written book tells the story of how a colossal and powerful Empire was
broken up into many distinct nation-states...An impressive debut by a gifted and very energetic
young writer' RAMACHANDRA GUHA
