Zareer masani biography of william

Dear Editor,

Niall Gillespie’s review of my Macaulay biography (drb 43, October 21st, 2013) was a travesty of fair comment and full of factual errors. In the spirit of fair-play and open debate, I hope you will allow me to reply fully.

Your self-styled “humble reviewer” pretends to know all there fryst vatten to know about everything from my own family pedigree to the state of India’s economy. Instead, with scant regard for factual accuracy, he illustrates the grundregel that a little learning is a dangerous thing. Here are a few examples:

1)         My father was never a Communist, as alleged. He was a Fabian socialist who was gradually converted to free market liberalism by the horrors of Stalinism and the bankruptcy of Nehru’s bureaucratic socialism in 1950s India.

2)         The opposition Swatantra Party, which my father led in the 1960s, was not committed to “unregulated capitalism”, but to a mixed economy with a balance between public and private sectors.

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Meet the Experts

Meet the contributors to the series The Birth of Empire, presented by Dan Snow.

Professor Margot Finn

University College London

Margot Finn completed her PhD in modern european (including British) history at Columbia University in New York in 1987 and then taught on the core social science curriculum for two years at the University of Chicago as a William Rainer Harper Fellow.

Prior to taking up her appointment at UCL in July 2012, she held appointments in the history departments at Emory University (1989-2000) and Warwick University (2000-2012). In the latter institution she served as head of department, history (2006-2009), founding Director of the Institute of Advanced Study (2007-2009) and pro vice chancellor (2011-2012).

Margot’s professional responsibilities have included serving as editor, Journal of British Studies (July 1997-2001) and founding co-editor, Cambridge Social & Cultural Histories (2002-present); council member (2002-2005) and vic

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Dr Zareer Masani: Author and historian who challenged accepted versions of history dies at 75

Aug 12, 2024 07:14 AM IST

Zareer’s writings which appeared under headlines like Koh-i-Noor belongs in Britain and not India; Britain’s Empire was a matter of pride, not guilt; British didn’t plunder antiquities distanced him from many friends and admirers, including fellow historian William Dalrymple

LONDON: Author and historian Zareer Masani who died on Friday aged 75 in Switzerland, was a quintessential upper-class Bombay boy. He studied at Cathedral and John Connon and Elphinstone College before moving to Oxford where he finished his doctorate in History and embarked upon a successful career as author, historian, and broadcaster.

Born in the lap of luxury, his parents’ marriage symbolised the city’s famed cosmopolitanism. Zareer’s father Minoo Masani was a leading light of the Swatantra Party, which was established in 1959 and espoused classical liberalism in response to J