Saudi Arabia; D. McDowell, A Modern History of the
Kurds(Tauris, 1997).
A good history of Israel is H. M. Sachar, A History of
Israel(2 vols, Oxford, NY, 1987).
Israel and the Palestine Conflicts.
N. Bethell, The Palestine Triangle: The Struggle between
the British, the Jews and the Arabs, 1935–1948 (Futura,
1980) is a good introduction. This can be followed
by R. Ovendale, The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Wars
(Longman, 1984). An invaluable collection is
W. Laqueur and B. Rubin, The Israel-Arab Reader:
A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict
(revised edn, Penguin, 1984). Y. Porath, The Emer-
gence of the Palestinian Arab National Movement(2
vols, Cass, 1974–7), covers the years 1918 to 1939. B.
Wasserstein, The British in Palestine: The Mandatory
Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict, 1917–1929
(Royal Historical Society, 1978) is good on the origins
of the conflict. See also M. J. Cohen, Palestine: Retreat
from the Mandate: The Making of British Policy, 1936–45
(Holmes & Meier, 1978); M. Rodinson, Israel and the
Arabs (2nd edn, Penguin, 1982). There is a vivid per-
sonal account of the conflict in the 1980s by T.
Friedman, the New York Times correspondent in Beirut
and Jerusalem, From Beirut to Jerusalem (Harper
Collins, 1990).
For the great powers and the Middle East a good
overview is A. Williams, Britain and France in the
Middle East and North Africa, 1914–1967 (Macmillan,
1968). With the opening of the British archives for
1956 a reassessment of the Suez war became possible.
Keith Kyle produced a readable, many-faceted account,
Suez(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991). W. Scott Lucas,
Divided We Stand: Britain, the U.S. and the Suez Crisis
(Hodder & Stoughton, 1991) is both clear and illumi-
nating. Startling in some of its revelations, Ze’ev Schiff
and Ehud Ya’ari, Israel’s Lebanon War(Allen & Unwin,
1984) explains that tragic conflict. For the bloody war
between Iran and Iraq, see J. Bullock and H. Morris,
The Gulf War: Its Origins, History and Consequences
(Methuen, 1989).
19 THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT
India
J. M. Brown Modern India: The Origins of an Asian
Democracy* (Oxford, 1985) is one of the best introduc-
tions. There is a sizeable literature on British India and
the transfer of power. R. J. Moore covers the period
since 1917 in three studies, The Crisis of Indian Unity,
1917–1940 (Oxford, 1974), Churchill, Cripps and India
(Oxford, 1979), and Escape from Empire: The Attlee
Government and the Indian Problem(Oxford, 1983).
See also R. B. Tomlinson, The Indian National Congress
and the Raj: The Penultimate Phase(Macmillan, 1976);
and the same author’s The Political Economy of the Raj,
1914–1947(Macmillan, 1979); C. H. Philips and M. D.
Wainwright (eds), The Partition of India(Allen &
Unwin, 1970). The relevant chapters of P. Ziegler,
Mountbatten(Collins, 1985) provide a sympathetic
picture of the last Viceroy. Still useful are B. P. Lamb,
India: A World in Transition(3rd edn, Praeger, 1968),
and P. Spear, A History of India(vol. 2, Penguin, 1970),
but both are rather dated. See also S. Wolpert, A New
History of India* (4th edn, Oxford, NY, 1992). The
problem of separatist movements in India is well cov-
ered by a distinguished Indian journalist, M. J. Akbar,
India: The Siege Within: Challenges to a Nation’s Unity*
(Penguin, 1985). P. R. Brass, The Politics of India
since Independence, vol. iv, I, of The Cambridge History
of India, (Cambridge, 1990) provides a thematic
political-science approach. D. Hiro, Inside India Today
(Cambridge, 1976) is a good read and stimulating.
Among excellent biographies, possibly the best way to
study the history of independent India, are J. M.
Brown’s Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope(Yale, 1989) and S.
Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography(3 vols, Cape,
1975–84) the latter abridged to a one-volume edition
(Oxford, 1990). See also K. Bhatia, Indira: A Biography
of Prime Minister Gandhi(Angus Robertson, 1974).Pakistan
An excellent one-volume history with an extensive
bibliography is Omar Noman, Pakistan: Political and
Economic History since 1947(Kegan Paul, 1988). The
founding father is the subject of S. Wolpert’s biography,
Jinnah of Pakisian(Oxford, NY, 1984). For contempo-
rary Pakistan, see A. Kapur, Pakistan in Crisis
(Routledge, 1991).Sri Lanka
K. M. de Silva, A History of Sri Lanka(Oxford, 1981);
M. Ram, Sri Lanka* (Penguin, 1989).Bangladesh
L. Ziring, Bangladesh: A Political Analysis(Macmillan,
1992).Burma (Myanmar)
J. Silverstein, Burmese Politics: The Dilemma of National
Unity(Rutgers, 1980); and, by the same author,
Burma: Military Rule and the Politics of Stagnation*
(Cornell, 1977).20 THE LANDS OF THE PACIFICFor an overview of south-east and eastern Asia, a good
source book is M. Borthwick (ed.), Pacific Century: The