A. L. Basham's The Wonder That Was India is a brilliant early history of one of the world's oldest civilisations. When it was first published in the United Kingdom in 1954, it became an instant hit, as it would in the United States a few years later. Since then, it has consistently found an avid readership all over the world, been translated in many languages, and has educated and entertained generations of general readers and serious students of Indian history alike.