Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, and Beyond
Pankaj MishraIn a narrative as revealing as it is profound, Pankaj Mishra’s new book dissolves the old boundaries between East & West, challenging every romantic cliché about the conflicts & dilemmas at the heart of the modern world.
‘Mishra offers a compelling blend of memoir, narrative history, politics, religion & philosophy. Thoughtful, intelligent & rigorous, this is a deep, insightful study of the very notion of modernity’ — Observer
‘Mishra is a precise observer & a subtle analyst, keener to understand than to blame . . . In a thousand details – such as the grimace he catches on the face of a sycophantic businessman as a politician’s bodyguard rinses curry-stained hands in his swimming pool – he salutes humanity’s paradoxes and wit’ — The Economist
‘Wonderful. The narrative is interspersed with sophisticated cultural commentary . . . &, if anything, the point of this important book is to collapse fallacious distinctions between East & West’ — Condé Nast Traveller
PANKAJ MISHRA is an award-winning novelist & essayist whose writing appears frequently in The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, & the London Review of Books.