Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat

The Pax Britannica Trilogy #3

by James Morris

This concluding volume brings readers up to the death of Winston Churchill in 1965. "Morris has written an unorthodox masterpiece...[a] book filled with superb studies of battles, ceremonies, landscapes, confrontations and, above all, characters" (New York Times Book Review). Index. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Genres: History, Nonfiction, British Literature, India, Travel, Audiobook, Historical

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one of the best on the late Victorian Empire that I have read, including The Last Lion, a book I have a guilty affection for. The blend of wry humor about a very serious empire and the knowing respect for true heroes is winning. The knowledge of details is wonderful. When I read it over over the past week, I was struck by the superiority of Morris' style to that of other great historical writers. I love this book.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did you know Hawaii was British for five months in the 1843? Britain took over other countries either for profit or to “deny commercial rivals undue advantages.” For the Church of England, “the British were some sort of chosen people.” Jan says, “There were few in 1897 to question the morality of the British Empire” (aside from the non-British 372 million subjugated people who questioned it). “There were few British families who had not sent a man abroad.” The liberals lost the election of 1895 and Empire was on full steam. “They (The Brits) meant no harm except to evil enemies (Jan’s term for anyone resisting British force and occupation) and in principle wished the poor benighted natives nothing but well” (unless of course they resisted). Imperial Maxim: “Severity always, justice when possible”. Lord Salisbury was the Prime Minister at the time and his “hobby was riding a tricycle around his ancient estate.”

Jan says, while “the Boers were fighting for independence (on African land taken from blacks) the British were fighting for an Empire (that took equally from ALL non-white colors).” “These (Boers & Brits) were Christian armies (except doing the opposite of what Jesus would do)”. In 1905, the Brits partition Bengal to better control it. Swadeshi (Indian economic boycott) begins, and it is effective. Lord Curzon’s best achievement was the restoration of the Taj Mahal. Jan says the Viceroy’s Palace was the greatest piece of imperial architecture; its bigger than Versailles.

Part of the Brit Empire expansion was a dick measuring contest with Russia which, under its Czars, had been expanding territory like the Brits were doing - only while the Russians were writing gorgeous melodies that didn’t suck – English composers focused on for graduation ceremonies (Pomp and Circumstance) and other sedate events. In 1904, the Brits invade Tibet where “in a few minutes” they killed (murdered) 600 to 700 Tibetans at a barricade rather than merely go around it. Inside they found “only squalor and disillusion.” The British charmingly promised the Tibetans nothing in return for concessions made. Winning hearts and minds. The Edwardian Age dies in 1910. Think of Hong Kong, Malta and Gibraltar as main ports from which British power was projected. Malta was “acquired” in 1814.

The Gallipoli Campaign was 259 days long and involved landing one-half million Brits on a peninsula. In the end one half of those Brits were killed or wounded. “Gallipoli ended in total failure.” WWI however added a million square miles to the British Empire, giving it South-West Africa, Tanganyika Transjordan and Palestine and pretty much Persia. Sadly, Jan will tell you Britain’s WWI gains but not about the Brit fueled genocide of over 10 million Iranians during WWI (see “The Great Famine & Genocide in Iran”, by Mohammad Gholi Majd). And this book “Farewell the Trumpets” is certainly the book Jan should have mentioned it in.

“Ulster had always been an imperial place.” “I think it very unwise to give up what we hold” said Queen Victoria. Iraq was a British puppet then. Then comes the massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh (Amritsar) India where in six minutes the Brits gun down civilians killing 379, wounding 1,500. A curfew was imposed at 10pm after which was a gnawing sound of animals feasting on left behind flesh. In India today, Jallianwalla has the same meaning as the Bastille for the French. Brits made great profit off of rubber, coffee, indigo, tea, coal, jute, and railways. In 1931, India had 100,000 Indian dissidents in prison. Gandhi’s Salt march changed world opinion against the Raj. Increasingly young Brits didn’t care about empire. The Brit generals of WWI were discredited. When King George V visited India in 1906, in one day he and he party, “shot 39 tigers, 18 lions, and four Himalayan bears.” I’m sorry those animals couldn’t maul him and his cracker-assed friends to death first while lustily singing “Rue” Britannia instead of “Rule” Britannia.

In conclusion, on page 150 Jan tells us what she should have told us in Heaven’s Command (Volume One), about how the Brits in their 19th century Opium Wars foisted Indian opium on Chinese population and forced the lease of Hong Kong to the British. Even in 1912, a quarter of the Empire’s income came from “official monopoly of the opium trade.” This was Britain reminding the world, “Hey, we aren’t just a near global shakedown operation, we are also drug dealers.” Jan calls Kenya a “delightful” country; but doesn’t mention the obvious British Concentration Camps or details of the brutal repression of the Mau Mau (Kikuyu). The following are books, I’ve read which better explain the British Empire in the timeframe of this “Farewell the Trumpets”:

Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, by Caroline Elkins, Britain’s Gulag: Brutal Empire in Kenya, by Caroline Elkins, Barbed Wire Imperialism: British Empire of Camps, by Aidan Forth, The Lion’s Share: British Imperialism 1850-2011, by Bernard Porter, The Great Famine & Genocide in Iran (Brit Induced 1917-1919), by Mohammad Gholi Majd, Winston Churchill Bio, by Tariq Ali, Empire of Crime: Opium & Brit Empire, by Tim Newark, Churchill’s Secret War: India during WWII, by Madhusree Mukerjee, A Peace to End All Peace: Britain in the Middle East, by David Fromkin, and Blood and Ruins: Brit History 1931-1945, by Richard Overy. This book of Jan’s was interesting, but the above books all taught me more.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even in approximately 1500 pages of Jan Morris's Pax Britannica, the author was only able to touch on the high points. While mentioned, there are no detailed descriptions of, for instance, the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the massacre at Amritsar in 1919, the Mau Mau rebellion, the fall of Singapore or any of the other many battles, invasions or rebellions that took place within the years of the British Empire. Instead of a simple accumulation of facts and events, Jan Morris has accomplished something much better. This author makes you know the Empire as if you had lived within it for all of its 200+ years and she does this through a constant repetition of the day to day lives and activities of the British people who built it. We are introduced to them through the places they come from, the schools which educated them, their class (mostly, upper middle. Few upper-class men and women went in for Empire building), the clothes they wore, the things they purchased for their voyages. We travel with them on the ships they took, the trains they built and ran all over the world. We eat what they ate, live in the houses they built, the clubs they joined and they way they treated their servants. We learn their eccentricities and the prejudices they carried with them. We follow their adventures and the greatest of them all, the adventure of the Empire itself.

Pax Britannica is a great achievement, not because by the end of it you will know all the facts about the Victorian age or the Empire itself but because you will come to more or less understand it as they themselves did. It doesn't matter if you approve of The British Empire or not. This is mainly a story about people, rulers, and the people they ruled. This last volume tells of the end and how it was met. The world has changed and I doubt that there will ever be again an Empire such as this one where the many are ruled by the few. Their motives were not always pure but, in the main, these men and women left the world better for having been there. The idea itself was flawed but the motives of most were well intended.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Conceptually weak, yet readable, popular history of the British empire, this 3rd book in a 3-part series deals with the last years of the 19th century through the middle part of the 20 century, focusing mainly on geopolitical strategy, armed conflict, leadership figures, and popular sentiment within the United Kingdom. The book is a case study in the historian as rhetorical stylist; a conceptual understanding of the period is occluded by the aestheticization that the author seems to have a hard time resisting, and which makes for enjoyable, if not especially acadmically rigorous, reading.

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Majestic.
Now that i've finished the entire trilogy all i can think of to say about it is that one word: Majestic.
But i better put in few more words to make this review worth reading.
This third volume is focused on the declining years of the Empire. The dismal fizzling-out of a once great thing. The really astonishing thing to me was that the Empire wasn't defeated by force of arms or overthrown by militants, not really, it basically lost it's confidence and it's will to hold on to power.
I am tempted to take from this the lesson that all political power is largely an illusion, a confidence trick, if people believe you have power, well, then you have power.
The end of this book felt really sad. Over the course of three volumes i had become emotionally invested in this Empire which faded out of history before i was even born and i found the last chapters of flag lowering ceremonies, garrisons leaving and naval bases closing profoundly sad. I couldn't shake the feeling that something great and glorious has left the world and that the world is poorer for it.
All things said and done this trilogy is the one i would recommend for anyone interested in the Empire. The writing is smooth, warm and easy to read. The author gives you the feel of the Empire as well as the relevant names and dates.
A brilliant trilogy, i may re-read this again many years from now and i will probably enjoy it even more.

[Jules Menanteau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Morris does it again. A great way to end the trilogy on the British empire. The author adopts a « snippets » approach once more broaching a variety of subjects from the historical facts, to architecture at the end of the empire or it’s relation to technology. As always Morries keeps a place of honour for the empire builder of the time and writes vivid portraits of men and women that shaped the British empire at the end of its life and whose name are now mostly forgotten.

[Timothy Auger · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the third book in the Pax Britannica trilogy describing the rise, climax, and decline of the British Empire, this volume inevitably strikes a different note from the previous two. In structure it resembles the first volume, in the sense that it's essentially a chronological narrative, rather than having a mainly thematic structure, as in the middle volume.

Because this is a story of withdrawal, creeping disillusion, and growing indifference on the part of the British themselves, I wouldn't say this volume is as enjoyable to read as its predecessors - in fact you have to be quite interested in the subject if you are to get to the end. At times it's rather sad. But I do recommend that you persevere, as taken together the three volumes tell an extraordinary story. I reached the end with a mixture of relief and regret - as one might at the end of a long, but very good and very satisfying film.

In a time of decline there are going to be fewer positive characters and uplifting episodes than in the first two books, but there are plenty of eccentrics here, nevertheless.. As someone born in 1947 myself, I recognise the atmosphere Morris conjures up as we come to the end of World War II, the desperate fiasco of Suez, and the cascade of countries becoming newly independent. The last big symbolic event of the book is the death of Churchill, an event I remember very well.

Morris paints a picture of disillusion with imperial pretensions in Britain. This was true when the book was written, and may be even more true today several decades later. However, some of the delusions of empire still persist in the thinking of proponents of Brexit, whose great desire is to make Great Britain 'great' again, and who see the 'Anglosphere' (by which is meant the US and the predominantly white members of the Commonwealth) as a preferable alternative, in foreign-relations terms, to continental Europe. They really should read this book, which does clearly narrate the divergence between the British and American views of the world post WWII (despite the so-called, and largely meaningless 'special relationship'), and the increasing indifference to Britain in the populations of almost every Commonwealth country - only to be expected.

This is a cracking story (in fact the whole trilogy is a cracking story), sympathetically told, without too much political axe-grinding. Recommended for Brits and non-Brits alike. Both will learn a lot.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is written by the author Jan Morris, who once was James Morris (but not the James Morris profiled here), but not to recognise her new name and sex is, for 2024, worse then transphobic it is an insult. Even more so as neither this book, nor Heaven's Command (volume I of the Pax Britannica trilogy of which this is volume III, for some reason Volume II is correctly listed under Jan Morris's name) are not listed anywhere against Jan Morris 'books' on Goodreads. I could spend every day explaining these mistakes to Goodreads Librarians but I don't have the time. Do you?

This is the same review I posted against Volume I and II of the Pax Britannica trilogy because my remarks are true to all volumes of really embarrassingly bad work. My Review:

This book, and its two companion volumes, is described by its author as an attempt to capture the feel of the British empire, the view it held of itself, written by a former imperial subject who lived through its final years and witnessed its ultimate collapse. Why that or its florid, and very readable prose, should excuse the grotesquely one-sided presentation of a historical period is hard to understand. What would we think of a history of Nazi Germany's empire building told as a history of the foibles and eccentricities of those madcap National Socialists! That funny little man with his silly mustache at the top of a pyramid of striving officials and soldiers! All those funny encounters between those cultured, educated German administrators attempting to create order in the vast, uncivilized reaches of their empire confronting recalcitrant Slavs, Poles, Ukrainians and who knows what others, those, 'new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child', that the German nation had sent out their best young men 'To serve your captives need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild' and what thanks do they get? None, all that happens is they 'reap his old reward, The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard' and after fighting 'The savage wars of peace' they find some Irish, Black, Indian, Pakistan, Pinko, Poufter, Leftie who, when 'your goal is nearest' come along and with 'Sloth and heathen Folly, Bring all your hopes to nought.'

That Britain, just as much as the Nazis, or other empire builder:

'ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant' (created a desert and called it peace, a quote from Tacitus)

is what makes this compulsively readable book an offense because it is apologia for a system that ground a quarter of the world under the heels of some incredibly mediocre people. It was about power and millions not having it and a very, very few white Englishmen from a miniscule part of that nation's population having it. Of course there were a few women involved, there were Irish, Scottish and Welsh men who took part and behaved as abominably as their English counterparts, there were even men from poor and working class backgrounds enthusiastically taking part in the rapine and plunder; but the agenda was set and lead by that minority of over breed and unthinking products of England's upper middle and gentry classes.

I try to find a reason to excuse this, and the other volumes in the Pax Britannica trilogy, almost pathological racism. That Jan Morris was an outsider in many ways as well as a liberal, possibly free thinking, individual makes it worse, though it is a salutary lesson on far attitudes have changed in the past half century, thank goodness. The Pax Britannica trilogy are only worth reading as a demonstration of the delusions the British had and the lies they told about their empire. It is unbelievable how long it took for people in the UK to actually grasp the reality of their country's deeds abroad and how resistant they were to referring to, or viewing, the 1857 Indian rebellion as anything but 'the Indian or Sepoy mutiny'.

All those noble Englishmen intent on doing good, all those funny, childlike foreigners stopping them, is it really that excessive to draw comparisons with Nazi empire building?

I come from England's oldest colony (Ireland) and despite how much I regard the actions of England over many hundreds of years as baleful but I do not believe that the Irish Famine of 1845-1852 was a deliberate policy of genocide. It was the result of viewing Ireland through the lens of what mattered for England. For longer than half a millennium Ireland was dealt with as an adjunct of England. It mattered only in so far as it impinged on England. That is the story of all England's imperial possessions, particularly India. Britain didn't allow the 1943 Bengal famine to happen through hatred of Indians (though Churchill's rampant and openly expressed disdain for Indians does suggest, as far as he was concerned, their deaths was not something for him to lose sleep over) but because India only existed to make Britain great and powerful. Irish peoples opinions or desires, exactly like those of the people of India, just did not matter. The English rulers of Ireland, India and elsewhere thought they knew better what was good for ordinary Irish or Indian people then the Irish or Indians who claimed to be their leaders.

It is more than military repression, economic exploitation and cultural debasement that left a legacy in former colonies, a quarter of the world ended up with Stockholm syndrome.

Books like the Pax Britannica trilogy need to be banished to Trotsky's capacious dustbin of history. You should only be reading them if you have read at least a few of the following in part:

'Barbed Wire Imperialism: British Empire of Camps (1876-1903)' by Aidan Forth
'Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire' by Caroline Elkins
'Inglorious Empire, What the British Did in India, by Shashi Tharoor
'Return of a King: the Battle for Afghanistan' by William Dalrymple
'The Anarchy: the Relentless Rise of The East India Company' by William Dalrymple
'Imperial Twilight: the Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age' by Stephen R. Platt 'Paddy’s Lament: Ireland 1846-1847: Prelude to Hatred' by Thomas Gallagher
'The Scramble for Africa' by Thomas Pakenham

I could go on and on, there is a wealth of information available now that was undreamt of when Jan Morris wrote these books. Caroline Eakins has revealed, via long legal battles, how much of Britain's colonial history has been systematically suppressed, destroyed and hidden. This isn't about portraying Britain as bad it is about growing up and accepting that if for 500 years a quarter of the world was impoverished to make a few thousand Brits wealthy it is time to face up to that. If you are one of the vast majority of British people whose ancestors never benefited from that wealth then perhaps it will make you look with a critical eye and those who did and their descendants who are still benefiting.

[Nicholas Woode-Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tremendously creative, well-researched and insightful book. I found myself not wanting to finish, as the book finally started to close the curtain on the British Empire.

This book, and the previous book in the series (Pax Britannica) are must-reads for anyone wanting to grasp the Empire. It is witty, expansive, glorious and ever so mournful. Morris does not shy away from exposing the glories and atrocities of empire, and paints a vivid picture of one of humanity's greatest triumphs and shames.

[ErnstG · Rating 5 out of 5]

The end of the Empire is also the end of the trilogy, and a wonderful read it was. This volume starts at peak Empire (Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897) and tells the tale of the plateau (to 1945, to be generous) and then the quite quick decline.

There are many ways of telling history. This is the way of someone who was moving to a quieter life in 1966, and had by then acquired a lifetime of travel and experience, and the skill of a professional author to make the result as readable as it could possibly be. If, from time to time, the attitudes of an ex-officer of the 9th Lancers shine through, these never predominate. Every generation needs history re-told, but this is the version that I first read in the 1970s and am comfortable with.

The Empire spread material progress over a large part of the world. This could have happened in many possible ways, but what happened is that the people from a small island off the NW of Europe ruled the seas and colonised much of the land, seeking primarily glory (p 547). Why did this search for glory suddenly evaporate? It is difficult to believe that Britain's relative poverty was the main factor -- apart from Brazil, even poorer Portugal never got much from its colonies but kept going for a long time. So the Empire coasted for a while and then expired rather suddenly and quietly, despite small wars in Kenya and (then) Malaya.

The British Empire was by no means the worst of Empires. For instance, it never was as brutal as that of the Czars, Commissars and Presidents of Russia and left a larger legacy.

Some delightful pencil sketches, not least of WSC (p545)

[Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

The final volume in a trilogy about the British Empire, this book traces the slow disintegration of empire bracketed by Victoria's death as the Boer War ended to Churchill's death in 1965. Morris shows that the Empire was in many ways a fictional construct, a facade, that began to slowly crumble from the questions raised by the Boer War to Gallipoli and the Mideast in WW1, culminating in the fatal rending on the myth of British Imperial strength at Singapore in WW2. I have read two of these books and I find them both great reads albeit dated. "James" Morris became Jan Morris (who died last year), becoming a noted travel writer--you can get a sense of his ability to capture the essence of a particular place in these pages. Morris admits a bias in viewing the idea of Empire in a sympathetic light; however, he/she never fails to address its failings and prejudices.

[Andrew McClarnon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been a most satisfying journey, this third episode returning to the sense of motion that started us off in the first book. The recipe is rich, but light, a series of essays, illuminated by anecdote and footnotes, often with little personal touches as the times touched the authors own. I'm reading it at time when the 'European' Britain that is emerging in this volume is now changing again, perhaps the impetus will be to seek global fulfillment through partnership rather than empire? Perhaps the tide of events will sweep another way. I feel better prepared with the knowledge and compassion these books have encouraged.

[Bill Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Final volume of the trilogy, covering the Empire from the 1897 Jubilee to the death of Churchill in 1965. As in the other volumes, Jan covers the good and the bad in the Empire in a surprising level of everyday detail. One of the best parts of these books is the footnotes, where she gives little family detail about the protagonists or what happened since. Or what happened when she visited the locations concerned.

The level of research and travel required for these books must have been huge. I'm jealous....

Fascinating stuff. I've read all three several times.

[James Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Morris herself concedes, this is a somewhat ‘tattered conclusion’ to the recession of a confusing and contradictory chapter of British history. It is, though, perhaps unlike the two volumes that precede it, a romping page-turner. What an extraordinary, eventful period in British history, and one that is remarkably lucky to have such a poetic hand tracing its wars, negotiations and treaties. Few writers could produce an account this thorough, readable, funny and emotive. She will truly be missed.

[Gareth Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1978 ‘Farewell the Trumpets’ has probably been superseded by later accounts of the British Empire and Morris’s judgements are, to my mind, overly sympathetic. However, Morris clearly engaged with the end of empire personally and the impressionistic parts are very good. This is a history of the Empire which takes an exclusively British, or English, view. The views of the colonised are not considered. This is of course a major weakness. But the book is a useful collection of British views to be read alongside more inclusive histories.

[Andie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last volume of Jan Morris’ Pax Britannica trilogy charts the decline and remarkedly rapid dissolution of what was once the largest empire the world had known.

From the first signs of decay in the imperial ambition in the Boer Wars, through the global shifts in power evident in the two World Wars, to the last gasp in the 1950’s and 1960’s, this book it offers a perspective that is honest, evocative, and occasionally elegiac.

[Patrick Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jan Morris is always a delight. She is definitely on my list of people I would most like to have dinner with. This is not really a work of serious history, but then few books of serious history include footnotes about the author meeting the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem at the wedding of the King of Libya.

[Andrew Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very evocative book from a clearly very well-traveled writer. It is full of anecdote and colour. But while it doesn't white-wash the crimes and indignities imposed on Britain's colonial subjects it is far too nostalgic about the Empire for my liking. It's sometimes hard to judge where the ventriloquism of reactionary attitudes ends and the holding of them begins.

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me 2 years to read the trilogy. Wonderful detail. As I am somewhat interested in the history of British Empire I found these books excellent. I really enjoyed James/Jan's style of writing also. For those who want a history of the Empire I would highly recommend these 3 books.

[Nell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A colossal work of history. While the author completed writing it in 1974, it is still relateable as India has so many quintessential relics of the Raj deeply embedded in our daily lives, 75 years on.

[Richard Springer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read his entire trilogy; I can't praise it enough. No doubt I'll reread it at some point.

[Therese Dotray-Tulloch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved the Pax Bitannica Trilogy by the always fun to read JanMorris. I learned sooooo much!

[Zhenkai · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit unusual, unlike the normal history books. The author wrote like it’s a diary.. quite sensational at times.

[Mavis Hewitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a quick read, but very interesting, packed with detail and lightened by occasional anecdotes.

[Abraham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such great prose and so opinionated. I don’t necessarily agree with Morris’s Eurocentric perspective but it’s up front and so well tendered

[Bob Webster · Rating 5 out of 5]

The third installment of the brilliant trilogy of the British Empire through the lens of one of its British subjects.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, this one strayed a little too far into empire apologia. Still a good read, but hard to take as seriously

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best things I've ever read, along with "Heaven's Command" and "Pax Britannica," the first two books of the trilogy about the British empire. These books are as interesting, well written, and exciting as the best fiction. I'mdefiniely going to read more of the author's books.

[Gerald Sinstadt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jan Morris's contribution to the history of the British Empire will only be truly measured as future generations turn to a series of books that will surely stand the test of time. This trilogy is a supreme example of how to marry the past with the present, to allow the triumphs and follies behind us to illuminate the way forward for those with eyes to read and independent minds to think. Perhaps sensing this, she writes, "... the post-imperial generation is passing by, and the mass of the British people know little of their lost Empire, and care still less."

And yet within these pages there is so much worth understanding. In Farewell the Trumpets there are great names in the foreground: T E Lawrence, Gandhi, Smuts and Churchill, politicians, statesmen and generals. Lesser mortals, too, for not the least of Morris's gifts is her ability to portray a person in an anecdote, evoke a mood with a poem, reawaken a moment in time with a musty cutting. There is ample humour for Morris loves a good joke. Most of the places of which she writes she has visited, many of the people she has met. And just once, the meticulous, even-handed historian gives way to the proud writer, and then only in a characteristically wry footnote: "The imperturbable Mufti settled after the war in Egypt - where I met him, I cannot resist recording, at the wedding of the King of Libya."

These three books represent a decade of travel, investigation, exploration and conversation. Five stars do them scant justice.