India by Michael Wood ***

I'm planning a trip to India. This book turned out to not be what I was looking for.  India is Michael Wood's travelogue where he reminisces about his extensive visits to the subcontinent, but his desire to be a historian overwhelms the narrative with  long historical digressions ... heavy on adjectives and short on details.

It is a long and tortured story, full of splendors and miseries, of pride and greed, and of fantastic cultural crossovers...

I expect there are better travelogues and better histories. In trying to be both, this book falls short on both.