SHATTERED LANDS: FIVE PARTITIONS AND THE MAKING OF MODERN ASIA
BIHT Lunchtime Lecture: Tuesday 26 May 2026, 11:30am-1:00pm
Valerie Haye, of the British in India Historical Trust, has supplied the following details of a live lecture being given on Tuesday 26 May 2026, by Sam Dalrymple:
SHATTERED LANDS: FIVE PARTITIONS AND THE MAKING OF MODERN ASIA
Sam Dalrymple
Tuesday 26 May 2026 11:30am-1:00pm
University Women’s Club, 2 Audley Square, Mayfair, London W1K 1DB
11:30am: Meeting/refreshments
12:00 noon: Lecture
1:00pm: Lunch (optional)
‘As recently as 1928 India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait were bound together as the Indian Empire. It was the British Empire’s crown jewel: a vast dominion stretching from the Red Sea to the jungles of Southeast Asia, home to a quarter of the world’s population’.
‘And then, in the space of just fifty years, the Indian Empire shattered. Five partitions tore it apart: carving out new nations, redrawing maps, and leaving behind a legacy of war, exile and division’.
‘Shattered Lands presents the story of how the Indian Empire was unmade. How a single, sprawling dominion became twelve modern nations. How maps were redrawn in boardrooms and on battlefields, by politicians in London and revolutionaries in Delhi, by kings in remote palaces and soldiers in trenches’.
Sam Dalrymple is a Scottish historian, film-maker and activist. The son of historian William Dalrymple, he grew up in Delhi, and graduated from the University of Oxford as a Persian and Sanskrit scholar.
His work has been published in the New York Times, TIME, New Yorker and Economist. His book, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, was an international bestseller, and a ‘Best Book of 2025’ for the Financial Times, The Week, Spectator, BBC History Magazine and History Today.
This lecture is presented in association with the Indian Civil Service Society.
Tea and coffee (self-serve and included in the ticket price) will be available in the Library on arrival. At 11.45 am there will be a short meeting for members of the (and anyone interested in joining).
The lecture will be presented in the Library at 12 noon. For those who would like to stay, an optional two-course meal (main course, dessert and coffee) from 1pm to 2.30pm will follow in the Drawing Room. Drinks can be purchased separately from the pay bar in the Drawing Room after the lecture. Dietary requirements accommodated where notified. Dress code: smart casual. All welcome.
Tickets for the lecture cost £15. Tickets for the lecture and meal cost £65.
Bookings for the meal close on 21 May.
Bookings for the lecture close on 23 May.
HOW TO BOOK
Click to book tickets online by card (fees apply), by bank transfer or by cheque.
Valerie Haye, British in India Historical Trust
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