Of all the books written by this author this is the one I not only did not like I found it lacking in more ways than one.
That was natural, I knew more about the subject than the author who visited perhaps once and then proceeded to write on what could be seen and understood on a visit that might have seemed long for a visitor from US, the land of comfort, but was far too short for understanding anything of the land and its inner world.
That the writer lived a great many number of years in China and in fact grew up there might not have made it easier or better - lumping all of Asia together for all purposes is far more of a folly than assuming Irish history is no different from Prussian.
And India is more comparable to Europe than any nation either in Europe or or one of the larger ones established as a colony thereof, what with her sheer variety in all things concerned - languages, cuisines, religions and faiths, climates and variety of people, to name a few.
It must be said that this book was so much of a disappointment only because I had loved her most of her other books, and grown to respect the writer for all the truths she wrote.