It's intriguing how certain themes and subjects can be dormant for years and then, for some uncanny reason, they suddenly catch the popular imagination. In the 1960s Africa was "in" and now, I'm glad to say, it seems to be my country, India.

Until quite recently, anybody writing on India for a Western audience was usually told, sadly but firmly, by his publisher that "India just doesn't sell." (p. 903)

[How] does one explain the change? Perhaps the 32 years since India won its independence have been a sufficiently long period for the British public to reconcile itself to the loss of Empire and to view the Raj without too much discomfort. One could go further to say, a little cruelly, that it is only after the delusions of grandeur have been shattered and Britain has accepted its place in the world as a second-rate power that an objective look...