The Billionaire Raj: Cricket to elections, how money has changed everything

Most books of this kind have an overarching theme but perhaps India is too complex for a single theme to dominate a book that is full of so many disparate experiences

James Crabtree’s publishers have packaged this as a book about India’s billionaires and, indeed, most Western reviewers have echoed that characterisation. But Crabtree’s book is really about much more than billionaires. It is, in effect, an account of the five years he spent in India as Mumbai bureau chief for the Financial Times till 2016. Crabtree retells many of the stories he covered during those years and tries to draw some broad conclusions from the events he covers. 

It would have been easier to just do a book on India’s billionaires. Crabtree has met some of them, is skilled at