India's China War

New York: Pantheon Books (A Division of Random House), 1970. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Good. 475, [1] pages. Endpaper maps. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. DJ has small tear at bottom of spine. Neville Maxwell (born 1926 in London) is a retired British journalist and scholar who authored the 1970 book India's China War, which is considered an authoritative analysis of the 1962 Sino-Indian War. In 1967, Maxwell joined the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London as a senior fellow to write his book India's China War. He was with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at Oxford University at the time when the book was published in 1970. The book draws extensively from India's top-secret Henderson Brooks-Bhagat Report, which Maxwell obtained a copy of. Due to the lack of available information from China, Maxwell, like other foreign scholars, had to rely on inferences based on official Chinese statements with regards to China's perceptions. The book was widely praised across a diverse range of opinions, including British historian A. J. P. Taylor, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Derived from a Kirkus review: Much of the material in this brilliant history of the India-China border war by the New Delhi correspondent with the London Times will surprise Western readers. Carefully examining the imperially conditioned history of the boundaries, recent diplomatic documents, news reports, interviews, and analysis of the Sino-Soviet rift, the Cuban missile crisis and other geopolitical events, he reviews India's increased aid receipts after losing the war, and concludes that for India the war was ""a political ploy, not a war."" Maxwell's fine grasp of the Indian political and military situation focuses on the conservative opposition to a Congress Party in decline, Nehru's inability to delegate authority, the vanity of Indian commander Kaul, and the impossible terrain on the Indian side which pushed India into its debacle. Maxwell argues that China was willing to negotiate and indeed to yield the entire McMahon line to India in return for a part of the Aksai Chin. The book is written with remarkable crispness and offers acute sidelights on the Sino-Soviet dispute, as well as Indian and Chinese politics, indeed, it is one of the best historical analyses of a recent event published over the past few years.