"In [The Chaos of Empire,] Jon Wilson visits often-ignored arenas of British-Indian contact to mount adevastating critique of British rule. The exercise of sovereignty (or what the men who ruled India called 'dominion') was deemed sufficient unto itself. Policy-making was chaotic and implementation uneven (the rulers would have called it pragmatic). The only constant was violence. This is a brave and long-overdue riposte to Raj romanticists." -JOHN KEAY, author of India: A History and The Honourable Company