In the mid-19th century India was the focus of Britain's international prestige and commercial power - the most important colony in an empire which extended to every continent on the globe and protected by the seemingly dependable native armies of the East India Company. When, however, in 1857 discontent exploded into open rebellion, Britain was obliged to field its largest army in forty years to defend its 'jewel in the crown'. This book, drawing on the latest sources as well as numerous first-hand accounts, explains why the sepoy armies rose up against the world's leading imperial power, details the major phases of the fighting, including the massacres at Cawnpore and the epic sieges of Delhi and Lucknow, and examines many other aspects of this compelling, at times horrifying, subject.

An epic true story of treachery, revenge and courage The Indian Mutiny is a real page-turner, an epic story with surprising modern parallels. Fomer army officer-turned-TV scriptwriter, Julian Spilsbury is the ideal author to take us back to the desperate summer of 1857 when thousands of Indian soldiers mutinied. They murdered their officers, hunted down the women and children and burned and slaughtered their way to Delhi. The tiny British garrison at Lucknow held out against all odds; the one at Cawnpore surrendered only to be betrayed and massacred. Modern Indian accounts call this 'the first war of liberation', but as Julian Spilsbury reveals, 80 per cent of the so-called 'British' forces were from the sub-continent. Sikhs, Gurkhas and Afghans fought alongside small numbers of British soldiers. Together, they faced terrible odds and won. In the process they created a new army that would play a vital role in the Allied forces in both World Wars. Julian Spilsbury weaves the story together from some of the most vivid eyewitness accounts ever written. From the women and children hiding from blood-crazed mobs, to the epic battles that decided the campaign, to the grisly revenge exacted by the British forces, this is a gripping recreation of the greatest crisis of Empire.

The Indian Uprising of 1857 had a profound impact on the colonial psyche, and its spectre haunted the British until the very last days of the Raj. For the past 150 years most aspects of the Uprising have been subjected to intense scrutiny by historians, yet the nature of the outbreak itself remains obscure. What was the extent of the conspiracies and plotting? How could rumours of contaminated ammunition spark a mutiny when not a single greased cartridge was ever distributed to the sepoys? Based on a careful, even-handed reassessment of the primary sources, The Great Fear of 1857 explores the existence of conspiracies during the early months of that year and presents a compelling and detailed narrative of the panics and rumours which moved Indians to take up arms. With its fresh and unsentimental approach, this book offers a radically new interpretation of one of the most controversial events in the history of British India.

"The events of 1857 to 1859 were tragic and momentous. The challenge to British colonial rule was on an unprecedented scale. Initially a mutiny by local troops, the conflict spread to involve local princes, rulers and land-owners. The fighting was widespread and involved horrific acts of brutality by both sides as well as great courage. In modern parlance, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing were common-place. This book places these grim events into their historical, political and economic contexts. The author's use of sources including personal accounts brings events of a century and a half ago vividly to life and the reader gains a real understanding of the whole affair which made such an impression on Victorian Britain"--Publisher's description.

Shows how colonial indirect rule and land tenure institutions create state weakness, ethnic inequality and insurgency in India, and around the world.

This book examines the ruptured characteristics of colonialism in nineteenth-century India. It connects the British East India Company’s efforts at the bourgeoisation of India with the Revolt of 1857. The volume shows how the mutiny of Indian sepoys in the British Indian army became a popular uprising of peasants, artisans and discontented aristocrats against the British. Tracing the rationale and consequences of this conflict, the monograph highlights how newly introduced political, economic and agrarian policies as part of industrial Britain’s colonial policy wreaked havoc, resulting in high land revenue assessment and its harsh mode of collection, rural indebtedness, steady immiseration of peasants, widespread land alienation, destitution and suicide. Using rare archival sources, this book will be an important intervention in the study of nineteenth-century India, and will deeply interest scholars and researchers of modern Indian history and politics.

This book documents representations of the Revolt of 1857 in India in non-English speaking Europe. It casts light on the impact of the Revolt elsewhere -- its international dimension -- examining its probable influence on simultaneous articulations of nationalist identities in central, south and eastern Europe.

Offers a revised and updated history of thirteen of the most significant British conflicts during the Victorian period.

Gautam Chakravarty explores representations of the event which has become known in the British imagination as the 'Indian Mutiny' of 1857 in British popular fiction and historiography. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources including diaries, autobiographies and state papers, Chakravarty shows how narratives of the rebellion were inflected by the concerns of colonial policy and by the demands of imperial self-image. He goes on to discuss the wider context of British involvement in India from 1765 to the 1940s, and engages with constitutional debates, administrative measures, and the early nineteenth-century Anglo-Indian novel. Chakravarty approaches the mutiny from the perspectives of postcolonial theory as well as from historical and literary perspectives to show the extent to which the insurrection took hold of the popular imagination in both Britain and India. The book has a broad interdisciplinary appeal and will be of interest to scholars of English literature, British imperial history, modern Indian history and cultural studies.

The revolt of 1857 continues to arouse interest and debate. This book, first published in 1984 and now in paperback for the first time, remains one of the best studies of popular resistance and peasant rebellion. This revised edition features a new introduction, which provides an update on the historiography of peasant revolt. The author also charts some of these changes and their relevance to a deeper understanding of the uprising of 1857.