Shadows at Noon2023

A groundbreaking view of South Asian history in the twentieth century that underlines the similarities and intertwined cultures of India and Pakistan

Winner of the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History • Longlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction

“Chatterji tells the story of the subcontinent’s recent history in a fluent sweeping arc. . . . Wonderfully enjoyable to read . . . [and] sure to become a classic.”—William Dalrymple, The Guardian

This radically original and ambitious history of the Indian subcontinent explores the region’s unique twentieth-century history and foregrounds the deep connections, rather than the well-publicized fissures, between the cultures of India and Pakistan.

Taking the partitions of British India rather than the two world wars as the...