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.

8 of 8 found the following review helpful:


Absorbing Read  Jul 15, 2004 By "KB" Kamla Srinivasan
Like many students of Indian history, I thought I knew it all. Imagine my surprise when I came across "The Great Hedge of India," by Roxy Moxham and discovered that the British had built a living barrier of hedges between British India and the Indian States. That this British-built Hadrian Wall of sorts, referred to as the Custom Line by the British in India, was meant to curb smuggling of the lowly common everyday household ingredient-salt!

Moxham first stumbled across a reference to the Great Hedge in a lowly footnote in a book (aptly titled) "Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official." That footnote became a full-fledged obsession for Moxham who spent countless hours and days in libraries hunting for more information on this living hedge. His quest takes him to various parts of India to hunt for this living "Customs Line."

This is a must read book for anyone interested in reading Indian history.

4 of 4 found the following review helpful:


The hedge that divided a people  Sep 16, 2006 By Y. Slayton
The author Roy Moxham set out to uncover the story of a huge hedge the British built from Pakistan across India. He discovered though a much bigger story of oppression and how a large corporation sought to dominate a people. The hedge was built to control the movement of taxable commodities like salt and had a huge impact on the lives of Indians.

The salt tax is a key part of the story and a key reason for the hedge. Taxes on salt are ages old, salary is the from the Latin for payment in salt. In imposing the salt tax on Indians, the British East India company perpetuated the previous practice of Moghul princes.

Salt is so important to life because humans in general cannot survive without salt in their diet. The human body contains about six ounces of salt and salt is critical for the body processes. The body loses salt daily which must be replaced. Failure to replace lost salt can lead death and disease.

The British East India company's salt tax affected every one, but none more so than the poor of India. The company made huge profits from the tax in the 1700s and 1800s. Many British aristocrats and businessmen made fortunes from their investments in the British East India company. After the British government took over the rule of India from the British East India company, it could have stopped the salt tax, but didn't.

This is an eye-opening story. The only thing missing are detailed maps because Moxham frequently refers to and discusses maps of India.

3 of 3 found the following review helpful:


Hedging Up the Way  Sep 20, 2001
Roy Moxham's The Great Hedge of India fairly jumped off the shelf at me as I scanned new titles at the library. I enjoy learning about India and thought myself knowledgeable, yet this idea was new to me. I couldn't resist checking out the book and peeling away yet another surprising layer of the onion that is India.

A 1,500-mile-long hedge existed in India during Queen Victoria's reign? Who ever heard of such a thing? This first incredulous question led to more such as how? Where? And Why?

Moxham answers all those quandries and more in his multi-year quest to discover the remnants of the hedge in various parts of rural India. The hedge, it turns out, really did exist, although precious little remains. It was a tool to faciliate collection of the dreaded and inhumane British salt tax.

Read this book to savor and smell India. Read it to follow and understand Moxham's obsession with the hedge. Read it to comprehend another case of "man's inhumanity to man." Most of all, if think you know the Subcontinent, read it to show yourself there's still more to learn of this incredible place.

3 of 3 found the following review helpful:


Modest but Unexpectedly Interesting  Jan 02, 2002 By M. A Michaud "michael_michaud"
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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