Author: Saul David
Publisher: Penguin/Viking
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 504
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0670911372
Description
This is a masterful work of narrative history. With energy, insight and authority, it casts fresh light on this extraordinary episode and challenges long-standing assumptions. Not least, it upturns the accepted wisdom that a British victory was inevitable by showing just how close the rebels came to depriving Victoria and her subjects of the jewel in the imperial crown.
In 1857 the native troops of the Bengal Army rose against their colonial masters. They were quickly joined by thousands of discontented civilians in what was to become the bloodiest insurrection in the history of the British Empire. No one was spared, as innocents on both sides became embroiled in a maelstrom of brutal murder and heroic resistance.
Combining formidable storytelling powers with groundbreaking research, Saul David has written the definitive modern account of the Indian mutiny. He brings to life an extraordinary cast of characters- from stalwart Lord Canning, the heroic Lawrence brothers and troubled William Hodson, to the ruthless nana Sahib, the William Hodson, to the ruthless Nana Sahib, the staggeringly brave Rani of Jhansi and the fair-weather King of Delhi- to narrate a tale at once heart-rendingly tragic and extraordinarily compelling.
And what of its causes? Did the mutiny really stem from a dispute over rifle cartridges? To what extent was it pre-planned? What, for instance, was the significance of the chapattis that mysteriously began to appear across the subcontinent shortly before the outbreak/ David provides new and convincing evidence that the true causes of the mutiny were much more complex, and disturbing, than previously assumed.
EXCERPTS FROM REVIEWS
Saul David is a rising star… Marvelously lucid, very witty and written with great stylishness and verve
-John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph, on The Homicidal Earl
An outstanding biography, stimulating, persuasive and superbly written
-Miranda Seymour, Sunday Times, on The Homicidal Earl
Fascinating.. well-researched and equally well-written
Andrew Roberts, The Times, on The Homicidal Earl
He has an eye for the apt quotation and the telling anecdote. A historian of enormous promise
-Amanda Foreman, Sunday Times, on Prince of Pleasure
Lively and lucid, with insight, scholarly understanding and flashes of wit
-Jenny Uglow, TLS, on Pince of Pleasure
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Maps: Location of Mutinies in Northern India
Delhi
Lucknow
Cawnpore
Prologue: The Electric Telegraph has saved us
1.The East India Company
2.Carlo Canning
3.Professional Grievances
4.Go to hell- don’t bother me!
5.The Conspiracy
6.The Greased Cartridges
7.Mungul Pandy
8.The Storm Bursts
9.Delhi
10.The worst of the storm is past
11.The Mutiny spreads
12.Oudh
13.Cawnpore
14.Satichaura Ghat
15.The Backlash
16.Enter Sir Colin Campbell
17.The Fall of Delhi
18.The Relief of Lucknow
19.The Reconquest of Oudh
20.The Rani of Jhansi
21.War is at an end
APPENDIX ONE : Was 31 May 1857 the Date Fixed for a General Mutiny of the Bengal Army?
APEENDIX TWO: The Civilian Conspiracy and Rebel Chiefs
APPENDIX THREE: The Motive for Mutiny
APPENDIX FOUR: The Post-mutiny Reform of the Indian Army
Sequence of Events
Glossary
Bibliography
Notes
Index