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on India Conquered: Britains Raj and the Chaos of Empire
is a fascinating and very well written book of the history of British India, For the century and a half before the Second World War, Britain dominated the Indian subcontinent, Britain's East India Company ruled enclaves of land in South Asia for a century and a half before that, For theseyears, conquerors and governors projected themselves as heroes and improvers, The British public were sold an image of British authority and virtue, But beneath the veneer of pomp and splendour, British rule in India was anxious, fragile and fostered chaos, Britain's Indian empire was built
by people who wanted to make enough money to live well back in Britain, to avoid humiliation and danger, to put their narrow professional expertise into practice.
The institutions they created, from law courts to railway lines, were designed to protect British power without connecting with the people they ruled, The result was a precarious regime that provided Indian society with no leadership, and which oscillated between paranoid paralysis and occasional moments of extreme violence, The lack of affection between rulers and ruled finally caused the system's collapse, But even after its demise, the Raj lives on in the false idea of the efficacy of centralized, authoritarian power, Indians responded to the peculiar nature of British power by doing things for themselves, creating organisations and movements that created an order and prosperity of its own, India Conquered revises the way we think about nation building as much as empire, showing how many of the institutions that shaped twentieth century India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were built in response to British power.
The result is an engaging story vital for anyone who wants to understand the history of empires and the origins of contemporary South Asian society, This book contains strong ideas and persuasive arguments but it lacks verve and style, In fact, it's badly written, There I've said it. started reading it I am currently two thirds the way through reading this book, and I can't wait to finish it so that I can move on to something stimulating.
I find the writing style to be quite turgid, and I really don't feel that I have learned very much at all about this significant Disappointing on various levels.
On the most basic level, the publisher has let down the author with shoddy proof reading, to the extent of incomprehensibility in places, Decent editing would have removed some of the repetition, But disappointing as a failure to make As the UK struggles with identity, it is tempting to look nostalgically on the days of the Raj, But, as the writer reminds us, there was to it than giving India the English language, railways, cricket and an incorruptible civil service, Should we feel guilty about exactly what l need for the O, U Arrived on time and just as advertised
by people who wanted to make enough money to live well back in Britain, to avoid humiliation and danger, to put their narrow professional expertise into practice.
The institutions they created, from law courts to railway lines, were designed to protect British power without connecting with the people they ruled, The result was a precarious regime that provided Indian society with no leadership, and which oscillated between paranoid paralysis and occasional moments of extreme violence, The lack of affection between rulers and ruled finally caused the system's collapse, But even after its demise, the Raj lives on in the false idea of the efficacy of centralized, authoritarian power, Indians responded to the peculiar nature of British power by doing things for themselves, creating organisations and movements that created an order and prosperity of its own, India Conquered revises the way we think about nation building as much as empire, showing how many of the institutions that shaped twentieth century India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were built in response to British power.
The result is an engaging story vital for anyone who wants to understand the history of empires and the origins of contemporary South Asian society, This book contains strong ideas and persuasive arguments but it lacks verve and style, In fact, it's badly written, There I've said it. started reading it I am currently two thirds the way through reading this book, and I can't wait to finish it so that I can move on to something stimulating.
I find the writing style to be quite turgid, and I really don't feel that I have learned very much at all about this significant Disappointing on various levels.
On the most basic level, the publisher has let down the author with shoddy proof reading, to the extent of incomprehensibility in places, Decent editing would have removed some of the repetition, But disappointing as a failure to make As the UK struggles with identity, it is tempting to look nostalgically on the days of the Raj, But, as the writer reminds us, there was to it than giving India the English language, railways, cricket and an incorruptible civil service, Should we feel guilty about exactly what l need for the O, U Arrived on time and just as advertised
Jon Wilson is Professor of Modern History at Kings College London, where he teaches and researches the history of South Asia and the world beyond.
He is interested in the everyday life of politics and government, and its complicated relationship to ideas about how the world is organised, His last book India Conquered US title The Chaos of Empire was shortlisted for the Longman History Today Prize, Jon Wilson is currently writing a global history of the nation state since, He lives in Eltham, South East London,
Jon Wilson