Thanks so much for responding.

The book is new, from Yale University Press, 2007. It is subtitled "India since the Great Rebellion"

Her analysis of the way Britain first turned India's manifold religious differences or differentiations into religious divisions is stunning. What Britain did, as she describes it, is disquietingly like a blueprint for the actions of economic and political colonialism ever since.

I'm about at the place where Britain is "negotiating" with Indian leaders(Gandhi, Nehru and others), the process which resulted in the end of the Raj, and Partition.

It doesn't hurt that Ms. Misra is pictured on the back fly-leaf, and looks absolutely gorgeous, in one of those white cotton shirts with about a hundred buttons up the front. (My HS girlfriend used to wear those. I look at her picture when I get completely frustrated trying to keep the names straight, or even pronounce them.)

Seriously, tho, it is really something to read about this stuff from the 1850s to WW1 and say, My God, that is exactly what we still do. Exploit differences into division, divide and exploit, wash, rinse, repeat.

Short review of Vishnu's Crowded Temple:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/aug/12/historybooks.features

"Most people do not now remember that the United States expended a great deal of money and effort in "growing" the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority's semi-state, only to see it destroyed utterly by Israel. That destruction cleared the way for Hamas' rise to "glory."

I don't think that's exactly true. The PA always suffered from a legitimacy problem in that it was literally created by Israel and the US, and was led by PLO lifers, most of which had never lived a day in the territories prior to 1993. The domestic contingent of Fatah was almost from the first days of the PA in conflict with the PLO wing from the exterior.

The PLO led PA had even more problems with creating an illusion of being a free actor. It was forced to provide intelligence on every day activities of Palestinians to the CIA. A merciless round up of Islamic activists in the mid 90's on behalf of Israel led to a further deterioration in popular support. Added to that, PA and Fatah officials are and were notoriously corrupt--and obviously so, to an absurdly insulting degree.

I think the Palestinian polity may have been more accepting of all of these problems, if the PA, led by Arafat's fatah, had been effective at garnering good concessions, and at least could have stopped settlement construction and ease movement restrictions. But these problems also only grew worse. After the death of Arafat, Abu Mazen, who was another notoriously corrupt PLO bureaucrat, took over. He had zero credibility with the Palestinian people, and the PA only grew closer in its one-way relationship with the US and Israel while life grew worse for Palestinians. Hamas, though roundly disliked through most of the territories, was the only viable party that was very obviously not corrupt, and did take a stand with Israel. People really had no choice.

Thus, the Fatah led PA was never an even an option for Palestinans--it just took them a decade to realize it. In the vacuum, as the US and Israel forced Fatah to marginalize all other party options, Hamas was the only group that had the social connections and infrastructure to step in as an alternative.

we made trouble wherever went and then left more when we left that the world still suffers from today.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 (dated 2 November 1917) was a classified formal statement of policy by the British government stating that the British government "view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" with the understanding that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." [1]

The declaration was made in a letter from Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation, a private Zionist organization. The letter reflected the position of the British Cabinet, as agreed upon in a meeting on 31 October 1917. It further stated that the declaration is a sign of "sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations."

The statement was issued through the efforts of Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, the principal Zionist leaders based in London but, as they had asked for the reconstitution of Palestine as “the” Jewish national home, the Declaration fell short of Zionist expectations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917

The Durand Line is the term for the 2,640 kilometer (1,610 mile) border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After reaching a virtual stalemate in two wars against the Afghans (see Great Game, First Anglo-Afghan War and European influence in Afghanistan), the British forced Emir Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan on November 12, 1893, to come to an agreement under duress to demarcate the border between Afghanistan and what was then British India (now North-West Frontier Province (N.W.F.P.), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (F.A.T.A.) and Balochistan provinces of Pakistan).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durand_Line

Then there is Africa and then Ireland, but as I say - don't get me started.

It is extraordinary how apologetic those who criticize Israel are. Regarding Gaza, it starts with Israel's right to defend itself. All the defenses turn on that. Of course Israel has a right to defend itself. It does not have a right to steal other people's land, treat them as less than human, force them into ghettos, deny them any civil liberties, and kill innocent women and children. Do Palestinians have the right to defend themselves? Or attempt to get their property back? And just how do they do that under occupation? How do you do that when the attempts to seek justice occurs in Israeli courts? Or at the UN Security Council? So, yes Israels have the right to defend themselves and Palestinians do not. That's the way it works and the rest of the world can go along or not. We in America go along. What we lose in the process is a very long list.