I confess to a strong distaste for reading full-length books on little electronic screens. We spend our workdays focused on electronic screens — don’t have to do that in our spare time. Instead, I bought a good used book for less than the price of the Kindle version. There is something about holding a real physical text in one’s hands!

Mr. Dalrymple’s sympathies are clearly with the Indians who suffered at the hands of the English East India Company. But he does not dwell on a point which is clear from his excellent book — Most of the privations forced on ordinary Indians were done at the hands of other Indians, even though they may have been working for the English.

Perhaps that should not be a surprise. India is as diverse as Europe, and historically most of the miseries visited upon Europeans were at the hands of other Europeans.