From the Ruins of Empire

FROM THE RUINS OF EMPIRE

The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia

By Pankaj Mishra

Published by Allen Lane, 2nd August 2012, £20

Ebook available

'It is impossible in a short form to do justice to... the intrepid and endlessly questioning spirit which lies behind his book'

Hilary Mantel on Temptations of the West, New York Review of Books

The Victorian period, viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, was experienced by Asians as a catastrophe. Foreign soldiers and merchants tore apart the great empires which had once formed the heart of civilization. As the British gunned down the last heirs to the Mughal Empire, burned down the Summer Palace in Beijing, or humiliated the bankrupt rulers of the Ottoman Empire, it was clear that for Asia to recover a vast intellectual effort would be required.

Pankaj Mishra's fascinating, highly entertaining new book tells the story of a remarkable group of men from across the continent who met the challenge of the West. Incessantly travelling, questioning and agonising, they both hated the West and recognised that an Asian renaissance needed to be fuelled in part by engagement with the enemy. Through many setbacks and wrong turns, a powerful, contradictory and ultimately unstoppable series of ideas were created that now lie behind everything from the Chinese Communist Party to Al Qaeda, from Indian nationalism to the Muslim Brotherhood.

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. Sitting in the midst of ruins of the old empires which now seemed doomed to permanent partition by predatory foreigners, these thinkers created the ideas which in turn were to doom the new empires, and which lie behind the powerful Asian nations of the twenty-first century.

Pankaj Mishra is the author of Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, The Romantics, An End to Suffering and Temptations of the West. He writes principally for the Guardian, New York Times, London Review of Books and New York Review of Books. He lives in London and Shimla.

MEDIA CONTACT: Pen Vogler: penelope.vogler@uk.penguingroup.com / 0207 010 3253