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Calcutta, The City Revealed
This study of calcutta, a city of poverty, famine, riot and disease, is the first of its kind since 1918
393 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
15 people are currently reading
225 people want to read
About the author
Geoffrey Moorhouse
43 books14 followersGeoffrey Moorhouse, FRGS, FRSL, D.Litt, was an English journalist and author. He was born Geoffrey Heald in Bolton and took his stepfather's surname. He attended Bury Grammar School. He began writing as a journalist on the Bolton Evening News. At the age of 27, he joined the Manchester Guardian where he eventually became chief feature writer and combined writing book with journalism.
Many of his books were largely based on his travels. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society in 1972, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1982, and received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Warwick. His book To The Frontier won the Thomas Cook Award for the best travel book of its year in 1984. He had recently concentrated on Tudor history, with The Pilgrimage of Grace and Great Harry's Navy. He lived in a hill village in North Yorkshire. In an interview given at the University of Tuebingen in 1999, he described his approach to his writing.
All three of Moorhouse's marriages ended in divorce. He had two sons and two daughters, one of whom died of cancer in 1981. He died aged 77 of a stroke on 26 November 2009 and is survived by both sons and one daughter.
Many of his books were largely based on his travels. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society in 1972, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1982, and received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Warwick. His book To The Frontier won the Thomas Cook Award for the best travel book of its year in 1984. He had recently concentrated on Tudor history, with The Pilgrimage of Grace and Great Harry's Navy. He lived in a hill village in North Yorkshire. In an interview given at the University of Tuebingen in 1999, he described his approach to his writing.
All three of Moorhouse's marriages ended in divorce. He had two sons and two daughters, one of whom died of cancer in 1981. He died aged 77 of a stroke on 26 November 2009 and is survived by both sons and one daughter.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 23, 2017
"the men who would be kings"
The Native American history of the USA would be quite different from the standard one taught in schools now. Similarly, a French look at Africa might focus on explorers and missionaries while Africans would have a separate focus entirely. I'm afraid this well-researched book raises the same question. It focuses on Calcutta as the second city of the British Empire, a city with British buildings, British institutions, a British cast of characters except for the last 25 years up to 1971, when this book was published. The British efforts (or not) at city planning, at defense, British clubs, British architects, British governors and British deeds. I must say that the author presents all this very well, but the Indians who live there are reduced to poverty-stricken spear carriers and a few individuals who, thanks to British trade or British education, managed to become movers and shakers. Everything is seen through a thick filter of the British impact. The voice of India, the voices of Calcutta, are entirely absent. Moorhouse throws out a million facts, which must have taken a great effort to collect---a lot of interviews, an energetic looking into everything. I did not recognize the city or India. Very little attention is paid to the intense intellectualism of Bengalis, of how well read so many people are there. Things in Calcutta did not depend solely on British actions. The feelings and points of view of Bengali people play no part in this book, not a whit. In proper British style, their intellectual activity is played down and civic accomplishments (or lack of such) played up. Of course, dealing with Calcutta's failing infrastructure, overpopulation, dire poverty, masses of refugees, and disorganization was never going to be easy. At 59,000 people per square mile, Calcutta is extremely overcrowded. Back in the 1960s and early '70s, it was a mess. The economy was shrinking, Naxalite bombs shook the city on almost a daily basis, and dire predictions seemed likely to be realized. However, the apocalypse Moorhouse predicted did not happen. Perhaps he did not really understand India, (as much as anyone can understand such a huge place) though he wrote a number of books about it. Now Calcutta, reduced to India's third city, has IT and some manufacturing. Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Pune have perhaps surpassed it as well, at least in "modernity" or "order". It has fallen off the front pages. Looking back with 45 years of hindsight, Moorhouse's CALCUTTA describes the British efforts to rule and then continue making money in India. It is colonial nostalgia in many ways, though not defending everything the British did. It may provide some useful history and a sense of what it might have been to be British in the city over several centuries. It is not a book about India as such.
The Native American history of the USA would be quite different from the standard one taught in schools now. Similarly, a French look at Africa might focus on explorers and missionaries while Africans would have a separate focus entirely. I'm afraid this well-researched book raises the same question. It focuses on Calcutta as the second city of the British Empire, a city with British buildings, British institutions, a British cast of characters except for the last 25 years up to 1971, when this book was published. The British efforts (or not) at city planning, at defense, British clubs, British architects, British governors and British deeds. I must say that the author presents all this very well, but the Indians who live there are reduced to poverty-stricken spear carriers and a few individuals who, thanks to British trade or British education, managed to become movers and shakers. Everything is seen through a thick filter of the British impact. The voice of India, the voices of Calcutta, are entirely absent. Moorhouse throws out a million facts, which must have taken a great effort to collect---a lot of interviews, an energetic looking into everything. I did not recognize the city or India. Very little attention is paid to the intense intellectualism of Bengalis, of how well read so many people are there. Things in Calcutta did not depend solely on British actions. The feelings and points of view of Bengali people play no part in this book, not a whit. In proper British style, their intellectual activity is played down and civic accomplishments (or lack of such) played up. Of course, dealing with Calcutta's failing infrastructure, overpopulation, dire poverty, masses of refugees, and disorganization was never going to be easy. At 59,000 people per square mile, Calcutta is extremely overcrowded. Back in the 1960s and early '70s, it was a mess. The economy was shrinking, Naxalite bombs shook the city on almost a daily basis, and dire predictions seemed likely to be realized. However, the apocalypse Moorhouse predicted did not happen. Perhaps he did not really understand India, (as much as anyone can understand such a huge place) though he wrote a number of books about it. Now Calcutta, reduced to India's third city, has IT and some manufacturing. Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Pune have perhaps surpassed it as well, at least in "modernity" or "order". It has fallen off the front pages. Looking back with 45 years of hindsight, Moorhouse's CALCUTTA describes the British efforts to rule and then continue making money in India. It is colonial nostalgia in many ways, though not defending everything the British did. It may provide some useful history and a sense of what it might have been to be British in the city over several centuries. It is not a book about India as such.
April 8, 2016
I will be visiting Calcutta (Kolkata) this year and this is the first of many books I plan on reading. It was first published in 1971 and I read the reprint version published in 1984. I found it enthralling, finely researched and beautifully written. My one criticism is the use of many foreign words which are not in italics; nor is there a glossary. This is essentially an editorial fault. But a serious one. Otherwise it is a fabulous read for anyone interested in the history and peoples of this seething metropolis. I finished it wondering whether I am up to tackling Kolkata even though I have travelled widely elsewhere in India, Pakistan and in neighbouring Bangledash.
April 18, 2009
The world needs an updated book on Calcutta. There was little to be gleaned from this typical tome, although I suppose as a history it will do. Oh and I am biased.
January 6, 2025
Aamir Khan once remarked that histories of India during the Raj were also histories of Britain. It is important therefore for both Indians and the British to understand it, to understand themselves. A concomitant of this is that such histories will be written by both Indians and Britons, with source material from both countries, and would not be complete otherwise.
Moorhouse’s ‘Calcutta’ can serve as such source material, but not for the reasons the author intends. The book is more revelatory of the author’s unexamined attitudes than the inner life of the titular city. It serves best as an instructive window into the attitudes of a certain generation, newly bereft of empire but not entirely at the stage of acceptance. If we are actually seeking clear-eyed histories, or even pleasant paperbacks that capture the heart of one of India’s most vital cities, we must look elsewhere.
In parts, this book is useful despite itself. In the first quarter or so about the establishment of early British rule in India and Calcutta itself, it is a storehouse of dates and anecdotes of varying levels of interest.
It then proceeds to devolves into an unsuccessful attempt at history for about half the book, seeing us into the present. Moorhouse can mention no Indian figure, be it Mahatma Gandhi or Swami Vivekanand, without thinking the worst of him. In the rare circumstance where he manages to speak well of an Indian, it is to congratulate their adoption of British habits, which amounts to self-congratulation. He can mention no British—or broadly, white and European—person without giving him the fullest benefit of the doubt the historical record can be stretched to accommodate. He is a hagiographer of the Raj, masquerading as a historian.
The funniest part of this is that he seems not even aware of it. Some unintended humour follows towards the very end, where Moorhouse criticises the then-present generation of Anglo-Indians for their ‘blank incomprehension’ towards the realities of their privilege and the depredation of India at the hands of their forefathers, with complete lack of irony or self-awareness about the book he has just delivered.
Moorhouse’s ‘Calcutta’ can serve as such source material, but not for the reasons the author intends. The book is more revelatory of the author’s unexamined attitudes than the inner life of the titular city. It serves best as an instructive window into the attitudes of a certain generation, newly bereft of empire but not entirely at the stage of acceptance. If we are actually seeking clear-eyed histories, or even pleasant paperbacks that capture the heart of one of India’s most vital cities, we must look elsewhere.
In parts, this book is useful despite itself. In the first quarter or so about the establishment of early British rule in India and Calcutta itself, it is a storehouse of dates and anecdotes of varying levels of interest.
It then proceeds to devolves into an unsuccessful attempt at history for about half the book, seeing us into the present. Moorhouse can mention no Indian figure, be it Mahatma Gandhi or Swami Vivekanand, without thinking the worst of him. In the rare circumstance where he manages to speak well of an Indian, it is to congratulate their adoption of British habits, which amounts to self-congratulation. He can mention no British—or broadly, white and European—person without giving him the fullest benefit of the doubt the historical record can be stretched to accommodate. He is a hagiographer of the Raj, masquerading as a historian.
The funniest part of this is that he seems not even aware of it. Some unintended humour follows towards the very end, where Moorhouse criticises the then-present generation of Anglo-Indians for their ‘blank incomprehension’ towards the realities of their privilege and the depredation of India at the hands of their forefathers, with complete lack of irony or self-awareness about the book he has just delivered.
March 31, 2025
In contrast to other reviews here, I thought this was a remarkably sharp portrayal of the great city of Calcutta. It is unflinching and unsparing.
No one comes out of it especially well, but Moorhouse is very clear that neither the British imperial/colonial class nor those who have followed as overseers had ever taken seriously the real human needs of the city's population, the vast majority of whom lived in a squalor that is vividly and memorably described. He is in no mood to defend the Raj. It may be that his attacks are too subtle in comparison to other parts of the book, which are polemical and almost apocalyptic to a degree not borne out by current realities.
My own mother was born into this place in the mid 1950s, but her Anglo Indian family left for England in 1961. Having read this book, I can more easily understand why. At one stage Moorhouse describes trucks coming to remove garbage from Strand Road in 1969. It takes them all night.
I visited the city last year and saw my family's old house, now in ruins behind government hoardings. It was on that same road.
No one comes out of it especially well, but Moorhouse is very clear that neither the British imperial/colonial class nor those who have followed as overseers had ever taken seriously the real human needs of the city's population, the vast majority of whom lived in a squalor that is vividly and memorably described. He is in no mood to defend the Raj. It may be that his attacks are too subtle in comparison to other parts of the book, which are polemical and almost apocalyptic to a degree not borne out by current realities.
My own mother was born into this place in the mid 1950s, but her Anglo Indian family left for England in 1961. Having read this book, I can more easily understand why. At one stage Moorhouse describes trucks coming to remove garbage from Strand Road in 1969. It takes them all night.
I visited the city last year and saw my family's old house, now in ruins behind government hoardings. It was on that same road.
March 2, 2025
Written in the 1970s, Moorhouse provides a window in the history and present state of Calcutta. While he hits the major points, I feel like other accounts, like Dutta’s, probably provide a better overall picture of the city. Moorhouse is obviously British as well, which filters his perspective.
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October 1, 2009Great insights, though its written in the 70's, so much has happened after that. Although is a good read on the city of joy! I read it while I was in Calcutta for the Durga Pooja festival, n learnt many things about the city
December 26, 2007
makes his disdain for "rich" ones a little annoying, but really good read about the best city in india
April 17, 2013
I found the book fascinating. Very in-depth look up to 1970 on all facets of this amazing city.
April 17, 2013
I read this shortly after returning from Calcutta so I really appreciated the background information which helped me to appreciate this amazing city
April 21, 2017
Very interesting take on Colonial Calcutta...
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews