1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh
This maps out the global political landscape leading up to the 1971 conflict between East and West Pakistan that led to the formation of Bangladesh. Very little of it is focused on the on-ground experience (which is what I was originally looking for), but it still made for a decent read. I hadn’t really read up on Bangladeshi history prior, and like with most things there’s a lot of reading you can do, but this covers the broad strokes of the formation of the Awami League, imprisonment of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after having drafted the autonomy plan, Operation Search Light, the liberation war the Indian intervention that followed.
It’s pretty thorough, so can be a bit dry at times (probably not uncommon for the genre), but if you’re looking for a overview of what happened, one that isn’t impassioned, this does the job. The global view taken here is kind of interesting; everything is placed in the context of the Cold War and the inter-relations between China, Soviet Russia, USA, Pakistan and India, with shifting alliances on the subject of Bangladesh. I also enjoyed learning about how the declaration of statehood was approached: the Awami league curried favors among activists all over to raise the question of Bangladeshi sovereignty, focusing on advocacy abroad to get nation-states to recognize the declaration.