Losses Gains

cache_278_435_3_losses-gainsThe autobiography of Ralph Russell
Part 2: 1945 – 1958
edited by Marion Molteno

Continues the story of Findings Keepings from the end of war, giving a lively, personal introduction to a period of complex social and political change … Internationally, from a situation where Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union were war-time allies to the Cold War and McCarthyism. In Britain, a period of austerity and severe winters, a housing crisis, the nationalisation of coal, the creation of a National Health Service. In India, the early years of independence, land reform and peasant uprisings, tensions with Pakistan.

Informed by the motivation that spurred him to become a political activist and an interpreter between cultures, it relates his disillusion with the British Communist Party, and after 1956 with all communist leaders worldwide, the beginnings of his scholarly career, and his many warm and sometimes challenging friendships.

‘A fascinating picture – tells us how a great scholar, and great servant of South Asian literature and people, came to be formed.’
– Francis Robinson, Professor of History of South Asia, University of London

‘I read it with total absorption, both stimulated and full of praise. Thought-provoking views on race, nationality, liberation movements and religious commitment.’
– Afkar

‘Immensely readable – bits of hidden history which are not in the textbooks.’
– Dinah Tyszka, writer on Lincolnshire history

‘An admirably illuminating autobiography.’
– David Birmingham, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Kent

ISBN 978-81-88789-29-0
UK orders: sales@longstonebooks.co.uk
South Asia orders: threeessays.com 

Return to Ralph Russell, Urdu scholar