In an elegantly written and compact study, [Maiorano] sketches the shift Gandhi brought about from a Congress with a strong base in India's rural areas to one that relied critically on a threeway alliance combining the state, the urban middle class and India's corporate sector ... This account of the weakness and vulnerability of India's institutions makes sobering reading. * Survival journal * This fine book is the first comprehensive analysis of Indira Gandhi's last spell in power and fills a major gap in our understanding. It examines her drive for personal rule and its corrosive impact on democratic institutions, and assesses her manipulation of dangerous communal forces which ultimately led to her own demise. And yet it is also an admirably balanced account of crucial economic and other policy issues, and much else besides. -- James Manor, Emeka Ayaoku Professor Emeritus of Commonwealth Studies A meticulously researched and lucidly written study that offers a much needed reappraisal of a central figure and a pivotal decade in Indian politics. Maiorano is a fine scholar, measured and perceptive in his assessments, challenging simplistic views of Indira Gandhi and the 1980s. -- Rochana Bajpai, Associate Professor, Department of Politics and International Studies Maiorano's study of Indira Gandhi's final term in office is illuminating. His carefully crafted analysis, interweaving national and state level dynamics, contributes to our understanding of Indian politics during this period, and of her legacies to contemporary Indian politics, economy and society. -- Katharine Adeney, Director of the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies * University of Nottingham * In this penetrating study of Indian politics in the 1980s Diego Maiorano shows how, in her last term as prime minister, Indira Gandhi contributed to making the hard task of governing India even harder, making choices that helped bring to the fore the Hindu nationalism, regional and caste oriented politics and venal political culture of today's India. The revealing picture he draws of India then is invaluable in understanding the country now. -- James Chiryankandath, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London and editor of 'Parties and Political Change in South Asia' 'Diego Maiorano has ... produced an analytical study that offers some original insights into an important if dark period in Indian political life. ... perhaps the most original finding of his book is its argument that Mrs Gandhi used her final term to inaugurate a new alliance between the state, the corporate sector and the middle class. ... [Maiorano's] enthusiasm for his subject is infectious and his research very impressive. He has painstakingly read the Indian daily press for the period on which he focuses and has also interviewed a wide range of Indian politicians, journalists and political scientists. * Standpoint * [Maiorano] provides an important insight into the later implications for India of Gandhi's time in power. * The World Today *