Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition (Nisid Hajari)

Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition by Nisid Hajari recounts the division of India and Pakistan in 1947 as Britain ended its centuries-long control over Indian affairs. "The Partition" as it is known was driven by many factors, which Hajari recounts in chronological detail.

This historical account details the seeds of Partition on a number of fronts: first, the history of the relationship between Muslims and Hindus in Indian history and how, despite occasional religious-oriented violence, the two communities had co-existed and co-contributed to a developing regional power prior to the nationalism movement that developed within India in the early 20th century. Between religion, culture, and ego among leaders in both the Muslim-led League and the Hindu-dominated Congress, Hajari accounts how people of both faiths, plus the Sikhs of Northern India, rioted against the other and how the British Empire, financially decimated by World War II, was looking for a quick exit and not a lasting peaceable solution. The result was the Partition of India and Pakistan, hastily done along roughly religious lines, which led to further conflict in parts of Kashmir and in cities near both borders as Hindus in a Muslim-dominated Pakistan and Muslims in Hindu-dominated India were targeted and killed by the other side.  The result of Partition was the largest mass-migration of people in world history, with millions of Muslims and Hindus moving into safer territory in order to flee the prospect of religious violence.

Hajari takes the 1947 Partition and broadbrushes 70 years of following history, pointing out how Pakistan's history has been full of military rule combined with interference in Afghanistan for the better part of the past forty plus years. The India-Pakistan conflict has occasionally flared up since 1947, with three separate conflicts through their histories as countries. The author focuses on how tensions between the two nations remain strong despite occasional, gradual, attempts to resolve the two side's differences in recent years over disputed Kashmir. More attention could have been given to recent events and a future outlook to where things could head in this region; however, Hajari does a brilliant job of telling how the seeds of division in South Asia were originally sewn. Midnight's Furies is a fast, well-sourced read.

MY RATING - 4

In the Garden of Beasts (Erik Larson)

It’s not always the easiest task to review a work of nonfiction. While with fiction, the reviewer can concentrate on how interesting the characters and plot developments are, she can’t do that with nonfiction. Every word Larson writes is true and well researched using a plethora of sources. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin tells the story of an American ambassador who was one of the only ones who recognized the unprecedented danger of the Fuhrer. When he tried to tell his colleagues back home as well as President Roosevelt, he wasn’t taken seriously enough for the terrible damage to be contained.

Ask almost anyone if they have ever heard of William Dodd, and chances are, they will look at you with a blank stare. But he was a very important historical figure, acting as the American ambassador to Germany during the rise of the Nazi regime. Larson tells the story of Dodd’s surprising ascent to the role, like a fish out of water, and the family’s eventual move to Berlin. Once there, the reader is taken deeply into the terrifying regime, where names like Hitler, Goebbels, Goring, Himmler, and Diels made their unfathomable marks in history. Today in the modern day, one cannot understand why things weren’t done to overthrow the government and deal with the unimaginable injustices, but Larson explores why many German people and foreign leaders just accepted the status quo…some even going so far as to glorify Hitler.

The best nonfiction books delve thoroughly into the subject matter without disrespecting their subjects. Larson does a masterful job at this, never spoon feeding his readers or mincing words. This is a story that deserves to be told, and the author does a masterful job at it.

MY RATING - 4