Rating: 
Summary: A interesting look at British India
Review: This book does a wonderful job of giving the reader a glimps of both modern and British India. The discussion of the health and economic impact of the British salt tax was very well done. I enjoyed reading the book and look forward to visiting some of the places described.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating!
Review: This book was loaned to me by a friend. It's not the sort of thing I normally read but the idea that there was a modern "wonder of the world" that I had never even heard of intrigued me. Perhaps because I'm not a student of India or of the history of British rule in India I found it fascinating. The author tells 2 stories here - one is the history of the cruel Salt Tax imposed by the East India Company and the other is the story of his attempt to find a remnant of the Great Hedge which was planted in the 1800's as a barrier to prevent salt smuggling.For a non-historian like me this was a perfect glimpse into Indian history, including some discussion of Gandhi. I also enjoyed reading about the author's travels in India as he searched for the hedge. Everywhere he went he ran into friendly people who welcomed him into their homes, shared tea with him and tried to help him. His descriptions of the countryside and culture really gave some insight into the daily lives of the people there. One of my favorite passages talked about his visit to the Amareshwara Temple in Omkareshwar and a ceremony that has been performed by priests there every day since 1795 in honor of Rani Ahilya Bai. I recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating!
Review: This book was loaned to me by a friend. It's not the sort of thing I normally read but the idea that there was a modern "wonder of the world" that I had never even heard of intrigued me. Perhaps because I'm not a student of India or of the history of British rule in India I found it fascinating. The author tells 2 stories here - one is the history of the cruel Salt Tax imposed by the East India Company and the other is the story of his attempt to find a remnant of the Great Hedge which was planted in the 1800's as a barrier to prevent salt smuggling. For a non-historian like me this was a perfect glimpse into Indian history, including some discussion of Gandhi. I also enjoyed reading about the author's travels in India as he searched for the hedge. Everywhere he went he ran into friendly people who welcomed him into their homes, shared tea with him and tried to help him. His descriptions of the countryside and culture really gave some insight into the daily lives of the people there. One of my favorite passages talked about his visit to the Amareshwara Temple in Omkareshwar and a ceremony that has been performed by priests there every day since 1795 in honor of Rani Ahilya Bai. I recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Great hedge small story
Review: This book, like all travel books should have been supplied with maps that would enable the reader to follow, at least in a general way the authors journey searching for the great hedge. The one map in the book is totally insufficient. The most interesting part of the book was that dealing with the salt tax but even there it sometime seemed like filler. Like the small remains found of the hedge there is not enough here to justify any thing more than a good size magazine article.
Rating: 
Summary: Modest but Unexpectedly Interesting
Review: This little book describes the author's initially quixotic quest to find the remnants of the world's longest hedge, briefly mentioned in an tome he finds in a used book store. Moxham discovers that British imperialists of the 19th century built a man-made barrier more than two thousand miles long, reaching across the Indian subcontinent. This hedge was designed to prevent the smuggling of salt from parts of India with low salt taxes to the area of Bengal, where salt taxes were very high. As Moxham expands his research into the history of this barrier, he discovers with growing horror the impact of imperial revenue policy on the lives of ordinary Indians, many of whom died because they could not afford the salt they needed in their diets. This previously neglected aspect of British imperial history makes one wonder how many other horrors lie buried in the dry pages of the Empire's official journals. Moxham, who writes in simple, declarative language, sometimes devotes too much space to the details of his encounters with modern-day Indians, though some of those encounters are charming. It is unfortunate that his book does not include a single photograph, such as one of the remaining piece of hedge he found. Michael Michaud, Vienna, Austria
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