In From the Ruins of Empire – part historical essay, part intellectual biography – Pankaj Mishra redefines our view of the last century by bringing us the lesser-heard voices of journalists, poets and radicals who travelled across Europe and Asia, including Jamal al-din al-Afghani and Liang Qichao. As he writes, ‘the central event of the last century, for the majority of the world’s population, was the intellectual and political awakening of Asia and its emergence from the ruins of both Asian and European empires.’

Allen Lane | Hardback 368 pp. |ISBN: 9781846144783