From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia

A surprising, gripping narrative depicting the thinkers whose ideas shaped contemporary China, India, and the Muslim world.

Meticulous scholarship ... History, as Mishra insists, has been glossed and distorted by the conqueror ... [This] passionate account of the relentless subjugation of Asian empires by European, especially British, imperialism, is provocative, shaming and convincing
One can only be thankful for writers like Mishra.From The Ruins Of Empireis erudite, provocative, inspiring and unremittingly complex; a model kind of non-fiction for our disordered days ... May well be seen in years to come as a defining volume of its kind
Deeply researched and arrestingly original ... this penetrating and disquieting book should be on the reading list of anybody who wants to understand where we are today
From the Ruins of Empiregives eloquent voice to [the] curious, complex intellectual odysseys ... of some of Asia's most educated, thoughtful men
Fascinating ... a rich and genuinely thought-provoking book
Superb and ground-breaking. Not just a brilliant history of Asia, but a vital history for Asians
Lively ... engaging ...From the Ruins of Empireretains the power to instruct and even to shock. It provides us with an exciting glimpse of the vast and still largely unexplored terrain of anti-colonial thought that shaped so much of the post-western world in which we now live
Brilliant ... Mishra reverses the long gaze of the West upon the East, showing modern history as it has been felt by the majority of the world's population - from Turkey to China. These are the amazing stories of the grandfathers of today's angry Asians. Excellent
Jolts our historical imagination ... a book of vast and wondrous learning and delightful and surprising associations that will give a new meaning to liberation geography
After Edward Said's masterpieceOrientalism,From the Ruins of Empireoffers another bracing view of the history of the modern world. Pankaj Mishra [is] a brilliant author of wide learning ... skillful and captivating narration
Pankaj Mishra has produced a riveting account that makes new and illuminating connections. He follows the intellectual trail of this contested history with both intelligence and moral clarity. In the end we realise that what we are holding in our hands is not only a deeply entertaining and deeply humane book, but a balance sheet of the nature and mentality of colonisation
Highly readable and illuminating ... Mishra's analysis of Muslim reactions is particularly topical
Enormously ambitious but thoroughly readable, this book is essential reading for everyone who is interested in the processes of change that have led to the emergence of today's Asia
Sophisticated ... not so much polemic ascri de coeur, motivated by Mishra's keen sense of the world, East and West, hurtling towards its own destruction
Outstanding ... Mishra wears his scholarship lightly and weaves together the many strands of history into a gripping narrative ... The insights afforded by this book are too many to be enumerated ... Mishra performs a signal service to the future - by making us read the past in a fresh light
[Full of] complexity and nuance
Subtle, erudite and entertaining
Mishra allows the reader to see the events of two centuries anew, through the eyes of the journalists, poets, radicals and charismatics who criss-crossed Europe and Asia
A vital, nuanced argument ... prodigious