Keynote
“Baker’s meticulously researched account . . . reads like the very best of novels.”—Siddhartha Deb
Book Title
The Last Englishmen
Subtitle
Love, War, and the End of Empire
Cover Image
- “It is to Ms. Baker’s credit that she keeps the big events always in view, dramatizing and humanizing the workings of history, particularly the story of empire and its machinations, in a way a novelist would—by making it a story of individuals. . . . It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that there is something Tolstoyan to her vast project.”—The Wall Street Journal
Body
John Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalaya. Michael Spender was the first to draw a detailed map of the North Face of Mount Everest. While their younger brothers—W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender—achieved literary fame, John and Michael vied to be included on an expedition that would deliver Everest’s summit to an Englishman, a quest that had become a metaphor for Britain’s struggle to maintain power over India.
Set in Calcutta, London, the glacier-locked wilds of the Karakoram, and on Everest itself, The Last Englishmen is also the story of a generation. The cast of this exhilarating drama includes Indian and English writers and artists, explorers and communist spies, Die Hards and Indian nationalists, political rogues and police informers. Key among them are Nancy Sharp, a London painter who captures the affections of both Auden and Spender, and the highborn Bengali poet Sudhin Datta, a melancholy soul torn, like many of his generation, between hatred of the British Empire and a deep love of European literature.
Dense with romance and intrigue, and of startling relevance for the great power games of our own day, The Last Englishmen is an engrossing story that traces the end of empire and the stirring of a new world order.
Set in Calcutta, London, the glacier-locked wilds of the Karakoram, and on Everest itself, The Last Englishmen is also the story of a generation. The cast of this exhilarating drama includes Indian and English writers and artists, explorers and communist spies, Die Hards and Indian nationalists, political rogues and police informers. Key among them are Nancy Sharp, a London painter who captures the affections of both Auden and Spender, and the highborn Bengali poet Sudhin Datta, a melancholy soul torn, like many of his generation, between hatred of the British Empire and a deep love of European literature.
Dense with romance and intrigue, and of startling relevance for the great power games of our own day, The Last Englishmen is an engrossing story that traces the end of empire and the stirring of a new world order.
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About the Author
Credit: Julienne Schaer
Praise
- “Baker writes beautifully, and she’s done ample research. Drawing on a host of private and public archives, she crafts memorable portraits of dynamic, flawed men and women.”—San Francisco Chronicle
- “Ms. Baker draws from a rich stock of unpublished memoirs, journals, police reports and other documents, deploying fresh material with a light touch. . . . As narrative history this is skillful work.”—The Economist
- “A book rich in fascinating details drawn from personal archives.”—BBC Culture
- “Incisive and illuminating. . . . This is a thoroughly researched, relentlessly engrossing epic tale. . . . [Baker] writes with verve and authority on colonial tension, cultural achievement and global conflict.”—Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
