This Is A Massive Compilation Of Secret And Confidential Documents, Recently Declassified, Concerning Us Policy And Perception Of Momentous Events In The Subcontinent From 1965-1973.

A major new investigation into the Bhutto family, examining their influence in Pakistan from the colonial era to the present day The Bhutto family has long been one of the most ambitious and powerful in Pakistan. But politics has cost the Bhuttos dear. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, widely regarded as the most talented politician in the country’s history, was removed from power in 1977 and executed two years later, at the age of 51. Of his four children, three met unnatural deaths: Shahnawaz was poisoned in 1985 at the age of 27; Murtaza was shot by the police outside his home in 1996, aged 42; and Benazir Bhutto, who led the Pakistan Peoples Party and became Prime Minister twice, was killed by a suicide bomber in Rawalpindi in 2007, aged 54. Drawing on original research and unpublished documents gathered over twenty years, Owen Bennett-Jones explores the turbulent existence of this extraordinary family, including their volatile relationship with British colonialists, the Pakistani armed forces, and the United States.

Conventional historiography in South Asia relies on official documentation treating the elite as central players in the story of human past. The role of marginalized groups in the making of South Asian history is relegated to the background. Popular Literature and Pre-Modern Societies in South Asia charts a continuous historiographical tension between the archive-centric constructions and marginalized voices of the non-elite. Vernacular literature, fables, folklore, myths, and legends drawn from the rich cultural and linguistic diversity of South Asia are brought together to reconstruct an alternative craft of history writing. Spanning large swaths of pre-modern history and exploring material from diverse regions of the subcontinent, this volume speaks of people, individuals, cultures, and traditions sidelined in modern history. The subjects of this volume retrieve the non-maintstream descriptions/memories of peoples’ past, mapping the contest between the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces persisting actively in the domains of state, society, patriarchy, religion, and culture.

The first comprehensive account of this roller coaster relationship, this book is a companion volume to Kux's Estranged Democracies, recently called "the definitive history of Pakistani-American relationsin the New York Times.