Pippa Virdee's 2018 synthetic account of the Partition of the linguistic and cultural region of Punjab provides a valuable overview of the field of Partition studies in relation to Punjab. Overall, Virdee's commitment to offsetting the relative lack of attention to Pakistani voices and histories in the English-language literature distinguishes the book from other accounts that have attempted to foreground the experience of Partition—including some of the classic works in the field—and enables valuable comparison of the two Punjabs as they emerged out of the period of intense violence and displacement associated with Partition. In this way, the work draws directly on Virdee's own research and provides a solid overview of existing work in the field; each chapter also ends with a poem or literary sketch, foregrounding throughout the contribution that literature has made to our historical understanding of Partition. Virdee offers a capacious view of the sources that contribute...
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