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9780143460121

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Ambassador Nirupama Rao has written a brilliant and fascinating narrative of India's road to war with China in 1962. In this tragic decade-long saga of missed opportunities, with each side misreading the other, Ambassador Rao has mined the archives to disentangle the complicated story of how minor divisions and disagreements between these two countries that would have been easy to resolve early on were allowed to fester and grow, until they culminated in an unnecessary and fruitless war, which left both sides diminished. This is a book full of profound and revealing insights about the making of foreign policy, constant reminders that even the wisest of statesmen can find themselves blinded by hope and fall prey to their own illusions. Liaquat Ahamed, Award-winning Author, Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World (Pulitzer Prize for History, 2010) This is a study that is thoroughly researched, scrupulously argued, fair-minded and elegantly written. It combines the historian's rigor with the practitioner's insight as well as a sane appreciation of the benefits and limits of hindsight. The book deserves a wide readership, especially in light of where we are with China today. Srinath Raghavan, historian and author With elegance, authority and a prodigious amount of research, Menon Rao tells us how a mountainous wasteland in the Himalayas once viewed as just a 'blank place on the map' became a field of combat between India and China in 1962. As the two nations find themselves again in conflict, hers is a cautionary tale worth heeding. Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Center on US-China Relations, The Asia Society, New York

""Ambassador Nirupama Rao has written a brilliant and fascinating narrative of India's road to war with China in 1962. In this tragic decade-long saga of missed opportunities, with each side misreading the other, Ambassador Rao has mined the archives to disentangle the complicated story of how minor divisions and disagreements between these two countries that would have been easy to resolve early on were allowed to fester and grow, until they culminated in an unnecessary and fruitless war, which left both sides diminished. This is a book full of profound and revealing insights about the making of foreign policy, constant reminders that even the wisest of statesmen can find themselves blinded by hope and fall prey to their own illusions."" Liaquat Ahamed, Award-winning Author, Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World (Pulitzer Prize for History, 2010) ""This is a study that is thoroughly researched, scrupulously argued, fair-minded and elegantly written. It combines the historian's rigor with the practitioner's insight as well as a sane appreciation of the benefits and limits of hindsight. The book deserves a wide readership, especially in light of where we are with China today."" Srinath Raghavan, historian and author ""With elegance, authority and a prodigious amount of research, Menon Rao tells us how a mountainous wasteland in the Himalayas once viewed as just a 'blank place on the map' became a field of combat between India and China in 1962. As the two nations find themselves again in conflict, hers is a cautionary tale worth heeding."" Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Center on US-China Relations, The Asia Society, New York

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Nirupama Menon Rao is a former Indian Foreign Secretary (2009-2011) and was Ambassador of India to China (2006-2009) and to the United States (2011-2013). She was High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka from 2004 to 2006 and also served as Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs from 2001 to 2002. During her diplomatic career, she spent significant time working on the bilateral relationship between India and China and specialized on the history and problems concerning the India-China border, and the question of Tibet. In retirement, she has taught at Brown and Columbia Universities, and was a Pacific Leadership Fellow at the University of California at San Diego. She is currently a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. Rao is also the founder of the South Asian Symphony Orchestra, a project to promote dialogue and habits of cooperation among young South Asians and the South Asian diaspora, through music.

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