The Last Days of the Raj, by Trevor Royle (John Murray, £13 in UK)

In August 1947 India became at last independent - or more accurately, India and Pakistan did, since by then partition had been accepted as inevitable. Britain had been planning withdrawal from the subcontinent for some time, but in the end Mountbatten carried it out with such haste that many of those serving under him felt that a more gradually phased operation might have averted the bloody fighting between Moslems and Hindus in the Punjab, where thousands died. As a result Gandhi, the apostle of peaceful resistance, inherited virtually a civil war. An interesting sidelight is Prime Minister Attlee's harsh, even insulting treatment of Wavell as Viceroy, in spite of the latter's generally sound advice and ability to see the situation in the round. Rather highly priced.