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Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnhem.

And me, William Duremple.

And we are in the midst of our mammoth romp through this rather excellent book by Sam Durimple. Yes, related. Not to me. But of the author of Shattered Lands,

the story of five partitions. Sam, thank you so much for coming back to us. So look, the last time we

left you in this series, we had talked about direct action day in Calcutta,

which really was, if you like, a foreshadowing of what would happen and the kind of violence

that could be unleashed on a country where Hindus and Muslims had lived together, got along

together for centuries, and how quickly that can just flare up into the most

unspeakable violence. So we are now going to jump to Britain in 1947 because it's really

important to point this out. People often ask this when we have like our Discord chats.

Did the empire fall because the British were knackered or the Indians did it?

Yes, it's a big divide, isn't it?

If you go to India, everyone's, of course, the triumph and freedom fighters drove out the wicked, perfidious seeds of Albion.

But here, the overall opinion, I'm speaking from London, it was, you know, sort of post-war

exhaustion, we'd just beaten the Nazis and couldn't be asked to carry on. That's the kind of view.

Well, I mean, just before we bring Sam in, I mean, let's give you an overview. And then, you know,

as with all of these things on Empire, you make up your own mind. There is no doubt that Britain

had crippling war debts.

So, you know, the government was shutting down the nation's electricity for five hours a day,

...