It is 14 years since John Keay wrote India: A History, still the single best volume on the subject. Now he gives us Midnight’s Descendants, which is much more than just a coda to its benchmark predecessor. Themed around the Great Partition of 1947 and its effects, the book covers the interrelated histories of five South Asian states – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal – with cameo appearances from China, Afghanistan, Sikkim and Bhutan. 

Midnight’s Descendants – its title nods to Salman Rushdie’s novel set around India’s independence – is the first general contemporary history of the region and displays all Keay’s trademark clarity and command of his material as