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

From Pankaj Mishra, author the successful Temptations of the Westand Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, comes a provocative account of how China, India and the Muslim World are remaking the world in their own image.

Viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, the Victorian period was experienced by Asians as a catastrophe.

As the British gunned down the last heirs to the Mughal Empire or burned down the Summer Palace in Beijing, it was clear that for Asia to recover, a new way of thinking was needed.

Pankaj Mishra re-tells the history of the past two centuries, showing how a remarkable, disparate group of thinkers, journalists, radicals and charismatics emerged from the ruins of empire to create an unstoppable Asian renaissance, one whose ideas lie behind everything from the Chinese Communist Party to the Muslim Brotherhood, and have made our world what it is today.

'Arrestingly original ... this penetrating and disquieting book should be on the reading list of anybody who wants to understand where we are today.' John Gray, Independent

'A riveting account that makes new and illuminating connections ... deeply entertaining and deeply humane.' Hisham Matar

'Fascinating ... a rich and genuinely thought-provoking book.' Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph

'Provocative, shaming and convincing.' Michael Binyon, The Times

'Lively ... engaging ... retains the power to shock.' Mark Mazower, Financial Times

'Subtle, erudite and entertaining.' Economist, New Delhi

'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