Edward Simpson is Professor of Social Anthropology at SOAS University of London, and Director of the SOAS South Asia Institute. He is the author of The Political Biography of an Earthquake: Aftermath and Amnesia in Gujarat, India (also published by Hurst); and Muslim Society and the Western Indian Ocean.
‘The book’s on-the-ground reporting from out-of-the-way places
across India and Pakistan is outstanding.’
*International Affairs*
‘Arresting … Highways to the End of the World provides a panoramic
but contentious view on road building. An important anthropological
study.’
*Hindustan Times*
'In this wonderfully original book, Simpson literally takes us on
the road. What we get is an illuminating study of mobile as well as
stationary lives, shaped by infrastructure into new social
patterns, no longer tied to traditional locales like towns or
villages. An innovative exploration.'
*Faisal Devji, Professor of Indian History, University of
Oxford*
'A must-read account of the roads and roadmen of South Asia,
staging a profound encounter between the desire for development and
the accumulated risks of climate change in the twenty-first
century.'
*Awadhendra Sharan, Director, Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies*
'A brilliant example of how to combine the politics and poetics of
infrastructure. Simpson's detailed historical and ethnographic
analysis of roads as politically challenging commodities confronts
the uncomfortable complicities of roads in the devastating
consequences of climate change.'
*Penelope Harvey, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of
Manchester*
'In this important anthropological study, Simpson examines how
roads and road-building have formed a key role in the cultural and
political life and development imperatives of India and Pakistan. A
fantastic book!'
*Peter Merriman, Professor of Geography, Aberystwyth University,
and author of Driving Spaces*
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