The Great Rebellion of 1857 in India was much more than a ‘sepoy mutiny’. It was a major event in South Asian and British colonial history that significantly challenged imperialism in India. This fascinating collection explores hitherto ignored diversities of the Great Rebellion such as gender and colonial fiction, courtesans, white ‘marginals’, penal laws and colonial anxieties about the Mughals, even in exile. Also studied are popular struggles involving tribals and outcastes, and the way outcastes in the south of India locate the Rebellion. Interdisciplinary in focus and based on a range of untapped source materials and rare, printed tracts, this book questions conventional wisdom. The comprehensive introduction traces the different historiographical approaches to the Great Rebellion, including the imperialist, nationalist, marxist and subaltern scholarship. While questioning typical assumptions associated with the Great Rebellion, it argues that the Rebellion neither began nor ended in 1857-58. Clearly informed by the ‘Subaltern Studies’ scholarship, this book is post-subalternist as it moves far beyond narrow subalternist concerns. It will be of interest to students of Colonial and South Asian History, Social History, Cultural and Political Studies.

"Frey's concise and readable history of the Indian Rebellion is an excellent introduction to one of the most important wars of the nineteenth century. The rebellion lasted more than a year and pitted broad sections of north Indian society against the British East India Company. British victory consolidated colonial rule that would only be dislodged by twentieth-century nationalist movements. Frey provides a crystal-clear account of the causes, principal events, and consequences of the rebellion. Equally importantly, he deftly discusses why the rebellion remains controversial. Well-chosen documents add texture to the analysis. This is the best short history of the rebellion in print." —Ian Barrow, Middlebury College

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.

Two wars––the 1857 Revolt in PBI - India and the American Civil War—seemingly fought for very different reasons, occurred at opposite ends of the globe in the middle of the nineteenth century. But they were both fought in a PBI - World still dominated by Great Britain and the battle cry in both conflicts was freedom. Rajmohan Gandhi brings the drama of both wars to one stage in A Tale of Two Revolts. He deftly reconstructs events from the point of view of William Howard Russell—an Irishman who was also perhaps the PBI - World’s first war correspondent—and uncovers significant connections between the histories of the United States, Britain and PBI - India. The result is a tale of two revolts, three countries and one century. Into this fascinating story Rajmohan Gandhi weaves the choices of five extraordinary inhabitants of PBI - India—Sayyid Ahmed Khan, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Jotiba Phule, Allan Octavian Hume and Bankimchandra Chatterjee—and of three towering figures of PBI - World history—Karl Marx, Leo Tolstoy and Abraham Lincoln—to show the continuities between the nineteenth century and the PBI - World we live in today. Scholarly, insightful and gripping, A Tale of Two Revolts raises new questions about these wars that changed the PBI - World.

This volume brings together seminal writings on the rebellion of 1857. It discusses key debates and interpretations; underlines changes in historiography; and explores new research on gender, Adivasis, and Dalits.

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.

In 1963, a human skull was discovered in a pub in Kent in south-east England. A brief handwritten note stuck inside the cavity revealed it to be that of Alum Bheg, an Indian soldier in British service who was executed during the aftermath of the 1857 Uprising, or The Indian Mutiny as historians of an earlier era described it. Alum Bheg was blown from a cannon for having allegedly murdered British civilians, and his head was brought back as a grisly war-trophy by an Irish officer present at his execution. The skull is a troublesome relic of both anti- colonial violence and the brutality and spectacle of British retribution. Kim Wagner presents an intimate and vivid account of life and death in British India in the throes of the largest rebellion of the nineteenth century. Fugitive rebels spent months, even years, hiding in the vastness of the Himalayas before they were eventually hunted down and punished by a vengeful colonial state. Examining the colonial practice of collecting and exhibiting human remains, this book offers a critical assessment of British imperialism that speaks to contemporary debates about the legacies of Empire and the myth of the 'Mutiny'.

The Indian Mutiny of 1857 was the bloodiest insurrection in the history of the British Empire. It began with a large-scale uprising by native troops against their colonial masters, and soon developed into general rebellion as thousands of discontented civilians joined in. It is a tale of brutal murder and heroic resistance from which innocents on both sides could not escape. This work covers the story of the Mutiny. It challenges the accepted wisdom that a British victory was inevitable, showing just how close the mutineers came to dealing a fatal blow to the British Raj.