Bücher von David Gilmour

"[A] lavishly enjoyable book." -Tunku Varadarajan, The Wall Street JournalBetween 1837 and 1901, fewer than one thousand Britons at any one time managed an empire of 300 million people spread over the vast area that now includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Burma. How was this possible, and what were these people like? The British administration in India took pride in its efficiency and broad-mindedness, its devotion to duty and its sense of imperial grandeur, but it has become fashionable to deprecate it for its arrogance and ignorance. In The Ruling Caste, a balanced, witty, and multi-faceted history, David Gilmour goes far to explain the paradoxes of the "Anglo-Indians," showing us what they hoped to achieve and what sort of society they thought they were helping to build. "[A] dense and impressive new book on the civil administrators of Victoria's Indian Empire . . . Gilmour is a serious historian. He writes accessibly and even wittily, with a wealth of anecdotage and an eye for the telling story." -Shashi Tharoor, The Washington Post"Mr. Gilmour is a stylish and engaging writer . . . [He] does make the case that the civilians, however tarnished their cause in modern eyes, deserve better than they get in A Passage to India." -William Grimes, The New York Times

"Elegant biography . . . a fast-moving, entertaining, and finely written story." --Simon Schama, The New YorkerGeorge Nathaniel Curzon's controversial life in public service stretched from the high noon of his country's empire to the traumatized years following World War I. As viceroy of India under Queen Victoria and foreign secretary under King George V, the obsessive Lord Curzon left his unmistakable mark on the era. David Gilmour's award-winning book is a brilliant assessment of Curzon's character and achievements, offering a richly dramatic account of the infamous long vendettas, the turbulent friendships, and the passionate, risky love affairs that complicated and enriched his life. Born into the ruling class of what was then the world's greatest power, Curzon was a fervent believer in British imperialism who spent his life proving he was fit for the task. Often seen as arrogant and tempestuous, he was loathed as much as he was adored, his work disparaged as much as it was admired. In Gilmour's well-rounded appraisal, Curzon is seen as a complex, tragic figure, a gifted leader who saw his imperial world overshadowed at the dawn of democracy.

"Readable and reliable . . . [Gilmour's] assessment of the political background of Kipling's writings is exemplary." -Earl L. Dachslager, Houston ChronicleDavid Gilmour's superbly nuanced biography of Rudyard Kipling, now available in paperback, is the first to show how the great writer's life and work mirrored the trajectory of the British Empire, from its zenith to its final decades. His great poem "Recessional" celebrated Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and his last poems warned of the dangers of Nazism, while Kipling himself, an icon of the empire, was transformed from an apostle of success to a prophet of national decline. As Gilmour makes clear, Kipling's mysterious and enduring works deeply influenced the way his readers saw both themselves and the British Empire, and they continue to challenge our own generation.