India: From Midnight to the Millennium

Few books in recent years, if any, offer such a comprehensive overview of what ails India, its politicians and its people; and few writers, apart from Nirad Chaudhury and V. S. Naipaul, benefit so obviously from the perspective Tharoor offers, that of an Indian with a profound empathy for his native culture, combined with the insight made possible by following Indias progress from afar.”
–New York Times

“A hard-hitting, powerfully analytical and supremely articulate new book. . . . Tharoor discusses the flawed miracle of Indian democracy from various angles, opting for a take-no-prisoners approach as he criticizes politicians, unpacks layers of misguided governmental policies and exposes the atavistic tendencies of special-interest pols.”
–Newsday

“Tharoor looks back at his countrys first 50 years of independence, describing its challenges (illiteracy, poverty, sectarian violence and the ever-present caste problem) and its triumphs (a thriving democracy, a burgeoning economy) in lively, informative prose. He is particularly adept at describing all that India and Indians are not–not the same ethnicity, religion or language–to arrive at the nations essence: that the singular thing about India was that you could only speak of it in the plural.”