Review: Independence Years
| Published date | 01 June 2000 |
| Date | 01 June 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200005500216 |
| Author | Margaret Doxey |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
resentment
runs
wide
and
deep,
that
the
West
has been
unwisely
insen-
sitive
to
this,
and
that
NATO
governments
have
stored
up
trouble
for
themselves
in
the
future
by
proceeding
as
they
did.
The
book
will
revive
disquiet among
those
who
wonder
if
George Kennan
was
right
to
call
the
expansion
of
NATO
'the most
fateful
error
in
the
entire
post-Cold
War
era.'
James
H.
Taylor/Ottawa
INDEPENDENCE
YEARS
The
selected
Indian and
Commonwealth
papers
of
Nicholas
Mansergh
Edited
by
Diana
Mansergh
New Delhi:
Oxford
University
Press,
1999,
xv,
274
pp,
£15.99,
ISBN
0-
19-564847-1
Nicholas Mansergh,
who died
in
1991,
was
a
noted
historian
whose
writing
on
India,
Ireland,
and
the
modern
Commonwealth
provided
a
rich
source
of
enlightenment
for
scholars
in
all
parts
of
the
world.
This
posthumously
published
collection
of
selected
lectures,
essays,
and
papers
spans more
than
three
decades
(1948-84)
and
a
wide
range
of
topics. Relations
between
Eire
(now
Ireland)
and
the
Commonwealth,
India's
progress
to
independence,
partition
and
the
decision
to
remain
within
the Commonwealth,
as
well
as
assessments
of
the
Commonwealth
itself,
particularly
from
the
perspective
of
Asian
members,
and
of
its
likely
future
are
all
subjects on
which
Mansergh
wrote
with authority and
perception.
Inevitably
in
a
collection
of
this
kind,
some
papers
are
more
sub-
stantive
and
of
greater
enduring
interest
than
others.
For instance,
Mansergh's
1976
Commonwealth
lecture
'The
Prelude
to
Partition:
Concepts
and
Arms
in
Ireland
and
India,'
which
takes
pride
of
place
in
Part
I,
contains
insights
on
partition
which
have
continuing
resonance.
Brief obituaries
from
the
Irish
Times
of
Lord
Mountbatten
and
Indira
Gandhi
obviously
fall
in
a
different
category,
while
the
excellent profile
of
Jawarhlal
Nehru
has
already
appeared
in
The
Commonwealth
Experience
(2nd
ed,
1982).
It
is
a
pity
that
the
chronology
seems
rather
haphazard:
in
particular
the
Epilogue, which
refers
to
India
in
the
1950s,
might
logically
have
332
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Spring2000
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