Ian Talbot

I have recently completed a co-authored major study of the 1947 Partition of India and its aftermath for the Cambridge University Press series New Approaches to Asian History. The work follows on from my long-term interest in the division of India and the emergence of Pakistan. It builds on the monograph I published in 2006 with Oxford University Press entitled Divided Cities: Partition and Its Aftermath in Lahore and Amritsar 1947-57. This study was funded by a two-year year Leverhulme Major Research fellowship which was held in conjunction with a Visiting Fellowship in History at Balliol College Oxford during 2003-4.

In addition to my work on the 1947 Partition, I am interested in Pakistan’s post-independence political history. I have published numerous articles on this subject. My main contribution is the major text entitled, Pakistan: A Modern History. This was published in 1999 by Hurst, reissued in an expanded form in 2005 and has now entered its third edition in 2008.

I am currently working on a study of the Punjab region of the subcontinent in the decade which followed independence. I am also contributing to a number of edited volumes as well as acting as the Guest Editor for a special issue on the 1947 Partition by the Journal of Cultural and Social History. This volume brings together some of the papers which were presented at the University of Southampton in July 2007 in an international conference on the theme of ‘The Independence of India and Pakistan: Sixtieth Anniversary Reflections.’