AMERICAN author Stanley Albert Wolpert, widely known and respected in Pakistan because of his books on Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, died recently at the age of 91.

It was perhaps Pakistan’s good fortune that by a quirk of fate he abandoned his first calling, that of wanting to become a marine engineer, to study history and become an accomplished academic and historian,

Wolpert probably wrote the best biography on the Quaid-i-Azam and it is a must read for all students of history and experts who want to study South Asia particularly the subcontinent.

The famous paragraph about the Quaid in his book Jinnah of Pakistan, and I quote: “Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three.”

Rest in peace, Stanley Albert Wolpert, you will be missed!

Jaffar Naqvi

Lahore

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2019