Chaudhuri, Nirad C

London. 1975. Barrie & Jenkins. 1st British Edition. Very Good in Slightly Worn Dustjacket . 0214200213. 446 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by D. S. Ward. keywords: History India England. FROM THE PUBLISHER - Clive was the greatest British figure in the history of British India. Most lives of him have been written in the light of the subsequent history of Empire, but in this book by the most distinguished living Indian writer the convention is abandoned. Nirad Chaudhuri's study of Clive's strange and elusive temperament has a special authority. It derives from his unique insight into the bizarre society which Clive came to shape and influence, and which in equal measure shaped and influenced him. The author maintains that no previous biographer or historian of the British Empire has assembled the facts of Clive's career and near miraculous achievement in an objective wav, free of didactic assumptions. Clive was, he says, the nearest approach in British history to a Napoleon - the embodiment of a temperament. By reason of his character he became the main instrument of British political commitment, as distinct from commercial interest, in India. Because of him the unsought acquisition came later to be called grandiloquently the brightest jewel in the British crown; the results of the process set in motion by his wild personality are more far-reaching and permanent than Napoleon's. It is in recognition of this achievement that Nirad Chaudhuri has written this thought-provoking and profoundly important essay in historical and psychological understanding. inventory #12518 ISBN: 0214200213.