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THE LAST ENGLISHMEN by Deborah Baker Kirkus Star

THE LAST ENGLISHMEN

Love, War, and the End of Empire

by Deborah Baker

Pub Date: Aug. 21st, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55597-804-4
Publisher: Graywolf

A Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist takes readers on a journey through the Indian subcontinent at the closing of the British Empire.

Baker (The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, 2011, etc.) narrates the stories of geologist John Auden (1903-1991) and surveyor Michael Spender (1906-1945), who both thoroughly explored this mysterious region of the world. They worked together on a survey expedition to map K2 and the surrounding Himalayas in a time before nylon tents, fleece bedrolls, and oxygen tanks. Harboring a secret desire to conquer Mount Everest, Auden diligently studied and surveyed the mountains to learn how and why the range was formed. While he, as many, did not accept the theory of continental drift, he was the first to notice the Main Central Thrust, the fault that runs the 1,500-mile length of the Himalayas. His observations and classifications of the composition and arrangement of rocks fueled countless post–World War II projects as India modernized. Spender brought his craft of photogrammetry—making measurements from photos (aerial and otherwise)—to create topographic maps. During the war, he helped define the art of photographic interpretation. With a host of interpreters working for him, he identified Nazis amassing equipment for invasions. Refreshingly, Baker doesn’t just focus on these two remarkable men. She also engagingly discusses the men and women who explored world events with art, poetry, and prose, seeing different angles and using different tools. W.H. Auden (John’s brother), Stephen Spender (Michael’s brother), Nancy Sharp (Michael’s wife), and Chris Isherwood all helped to map the cultural landscape of that era. In India, there was Sudhin Datta, a Bengali intellectual who founded Parichay, a literary journal for men of letters, and was the host of a weekly discussion group in Calcutta.

Seemingly covering disparate topics, Baker beautifully connects them all with an incisive, clear writing style and sharp descriptions of the terrain. A book for any readers curious about India after 1900.