I borrowed this book from the library because, like most people, including the author, I found it hard to believe that something as prominent as hedge stretching across India could disappear so completely from historical record. This book was all the more enticing since British imperial history is a field of intense interest to me. So it was with much curiosity that I picked up this book and began to read about the history of this hedge, essentially a customs barrier used to regulate the trade and tax on salt. But as it turned out, I'm glad I didn't spend the money to purchase this book because there is very little to be gained by reading it more than once.

My first impression is of a disjointed tale in which the author hops back and forth between travelogue writing, a criticism of British politics, and a detailed description of his library research. Yet no chapter of this book (with one exception of which I will comment later) was strong enough to stand on its own. The travel narratives were often depressing, leading me to ask why the author was so enamored with India if he hated so many aspects of his travels there. The criticisms of British policy, while characteristic of the guilt and self-loathing that I have seen manifest in many Britons when discussing their former empire, would perhaps have been better suited to a political science text. As far as the research is concerned, my eyes glaze over when doing my own, let alone when reading about someone else's methodical work. Finally, when the author describes in meticulous detail his use of a GPS to determine the coordinates for this hedge, in this particular instance the 78E meridian through Agra, he proceeds to mix up longitude with latitude. This is probably just an editing error but the lack of attention to detail does not bode well.

However, on the plus side, I will defend the author against the criticism of not using enough maps. As he clearly points out in the book, there simply aren't detailed maps of India available to one who is not in the Indian government. In India it is illegal to possess maps of the scale that would have offered the necessary detail to the reader. On more than one occasion the author notes his reluctance to even use his GPS because of the paranoia of the Indian officials nearby. Satellite images might have been purchased but at an unreasonable cost and the maps found at the India Office or the British Museum were probably of too large a scale to successfully reduce to an octavo bound book.

I also want to say that one section of this book (to which I alluded earlier) did fascinate me: That of the physiology of salt and the human diet. I had only a rudimentary understanding of why salt is needed, how much is needed, where it is found (or rather, not found) in food, and the consequences of its absence. For that one chapter I thought I was reading an Asimov book for the author was so thorough in discussing this topic and the text flowed so effortlessly. One could clearly see why the customs hedge would have such a profound affect on the lives of 19th century Indians.

But the same can not said of this book overall. When the reader finally does get to the part where the hedge is found (four pages from the end of the book) it is anticlimactic and one is left wondering why the author spent so much time writing a book and not...writing an article for National Geographic.

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

If you haven't heard of the Great Hedge of India, don't be surprised. Roy Moxham spent his every holiday in India, and thought he knew something of the nation, but when he came across an old book that mentioned the hedge, he had never heard of it. He found more references to it, did all the research he could, and then went on a quest to find it. _The Great Hedge of India: The Search for the Living Barrier that Divided a People_ (Carroll and Graf) is the delightful story of that quest. Moxham had the idea in the beginning that he was searching for a quintessentially British folly, but learned in his researches that it was a far-from-harmless monstrosity, "a terrible instrument of British oppression." He gives us the history of salt and of the salt tax, as well as salt physiology, and it's role in the deaths of millions in the last century. The salt tax and the hedge played a role in that sad story.

Fortunately, while Moxham has to fill us in on such history (and the history of the comparable French tax on salt), he also has the much more pleasant task of telling us about his researches and his travels. We get to learn about his finding period maps, how difficult they were to read, and how he came to use the Global positioning System on his hunt. But the cheeriest parts of the story have to do with his visits with friends and strangers in India. He is able to describe with good humor the frustration of travel by motorized rickshaw, inexplicably efficient or inefficient trains, and pedestrian searches in the heat and dust of the Indian plains. His Indian friends were unflaggingly helpful. The strangers he met were almost always interested in his quest, although intensive farming and road building have wiped out almost all the traces of the hedge, and the community memory of it is almost entirely obliterated, too. They supported him when all seemed lost. This is fine travel writing.

Moxham succeeded in his quest to find some remnant of the hedge, but more importantly, he has made history by rescuing it from obscurity. The hedge was an amazing physical achievement, but perhaps because its purpose was so ignominious people preserved little record of it. Anyone reading this fascinating book, however, will be impressed by the quest for the hedge, and that its history has not been lost.