Imperialism
Jezebel or Joan of Arc?
In June, 1857, Lakshmi Bai, the Rani of Jhansi, belatedly committed herself and her kingdom to the revolt variously known as the Indian Mutiny, the Sepoy Rebellion, or the First Indian War of Independence. A Break in Tradition The rani had long-standing grievances against the British. She was the widow of Gangadhar Rao Niwalkar, ruler…
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Whose Remembrance?
A few statistics from the Imperial War Museum in London make it clear that the First World War was a global war in more than one sense: Roughly 1.5 million soldiers from British India served in the war; 80,000 lost their lives. Many of them fought in the trenches on the Western Front–if you don’t…
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Gandhi Before India
The first volume of what may well be the definitive biography of Mohandas Gandhi, Ramachandra Guha’s Gandhi Before India covers the years from Gandhi’s birth in 1869 through his departure from South Africa in July, 1914. Biographers have often treated Gandhi’s earlier life– especially his two decades working in South Africa–as a little more than…
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