Colonial India

In the 18th century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannons, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalized racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial "gift" was designed in Britain's interests alone.

The “compelling [and] vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) true story of a man who claimed to be a survivor of a 1919 British massacre in India, his elaborate twenty-year plan for revenge, and the mix of truth and legend that made him a hero to hundreds of millions. When Sir Michael...

In the 31st century, humanity stands on the precipice of extinction. The human colonies throughout the galaxy have been decimated by the relentless assault of the Korilian Empire, leaving Earth as the final refuge. Humankind's last hope rests on the tactical prowess of Admiral Jon McCarthy and the foresight of the Nexus House, an ancient conclave of clairvoyants who have long guided humanity's path.

This compellingly written history presents a fresh, new view of the events that led from the first foreign salute to American nationhood in 1776 to the last campaign of the Revolution five years later. It paints a magnificent portrait of General George Washington and recounts in riveting detail the events responsible for the birth of our nation.

In the shadow of the London Blitz, artist Elsie Turner clings fiercely to her canvases, refusing to let war dim the colors that define her. The bombs test her nerve, but the struggle also stirs memories of her golden youth in India and of the long-lost love of her life.

This volume in a series of world history case studies analyzes Spanish colonialism in the early seventeenth century by examining the career of Diego Fernández de Córdoba. Fernández served as viceroy of both New Spain (Mexico) and Peru during a period that featured strained race relations, new socio-economic tensions, and bitter conflicts between Catholic religious orders. His measured responses to Jews, the Inquisition, women, and local rebellions reveal a man determined to hold a vast empire together through the power of compromise. What emerges is a new understanding of an often-...

Western civilization is under attack. At universities and in the media, professors and pundits decry Western civilization as exploitative, destructive, and without value. But fear not: coming to its defense is this "P.I." guide to Western civilization.

Apart from The Last of the Mohicans, most Americans know little of the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years' War, and yet it remains one of the most fascinating periods in our history. In January 2006, PBS will air The War That Made America, a four-part documentary about this epic conflict. Fred Anderson, the award-winning and critically acclaimed historian, has written the official tie-in to this exciting television event.

Since the East India Company merged seven islands into Bombay (now Mumbai), change has been constant-but now it is used as a weapon for displacement, disguised as development. Slums are erased overnight to make way for luxury towers priced in tens of crores. The working class is pushed to the...

Nutmeg and No Mercy A spice became worth more than human life. What followed was brutality few were meant to remember. The most brutal and profitable genocide you've never heard of. In the early 17th century, a single spice was worth more than gold. Nutmeg—exotic, intoxicating, and found on only one tiny cluster of volcanic islands: the Banda Archipelago. When the ruthless Dutch East India Company (VOC)—the world’s first true multinational corporation—discovered this monopoly, they initiated a campaign of unrivaled cruelty to secure it. This is the untold micro-history of imperial ...

In the first volume in the Penguin History of the United States series, edited by Eric Foner, Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America, from the native inhabitants from millennia past through the decades of Western colonization and conquest and across the entire continent, all the way to the Pacific coast.

Founded in New York in 1875, the Theosophical Society emerged at a moment of profound intellectual upheaval. Science was challenging scripture, empire was reshaping cultures, and modernity was unsettling inherited certainties. Into this fractured world stepped a movement that claimed to reconcile evolution with spiritual law, religion with reason, and East with West. In The Theosophical Society, Alana Sanchez offers a meticulously researched historical study of one of the most influential—and controversial—spiritual movements of the modern age. Moving beyond caricature and ...

A young Indian man is tapped to help his country’s fight for freedom—but his heart engages him in a different war. “Grand, sweeping, mesmerizing . . . a richly detailed, politically profound story of love, of migration, of individuals caught up in the great convulsions of history...

A bold and sweeping history of modern South Asia, told through the five partitions that reshaped it. As recently as 1928, a vast swath of Asia stretching from the Red Sea to the borders of Thailand was bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the “Indian...

The History of Australia: From Indigenous Origins to a Modern Nation Australia is called the “land down under,” but how much do you really know about its past? Did you know that modern Australia started as a British prison colony? Or that for tens of thousands of years before that, Indigenous peoples lived there, building rich cultures and traditions? This book takes you through Australia’s history, from its first inhabitants to the arrival of European settlers to its fight for independence to its current role in world events. Learn about the convicts who built early settlements, the ...

The Empire’s “Jewel in the Crown” For almost two hundred years Britain ran one of the most diverse places on the planet. The British did not show up in India as invaders. They arrived as businessmen. In 1600 the East India Company formed to buy and sell spices textiles and tea. Over many decades that private company built its own army. It defeated local rulers and started taking taxes from millions. What began as simple trade slowly grew into a massive empire. By the middle of the 1800s Britain took direct control. That era became known as the Raj. It was a time that reshaped the ...

In the heart of 1857 India, one man’s courage will become legend. The Lion of India is a gripping historical fiction novel that brings to life the first Indian War of Independence—a revolution against the British East India Company that ignited a nation’s fight for freedom. Mirza Khan has lost everything: his family, his land, and his beloved wife. Imprisoned by British captors, the once-proud nobleman now faces his final days as the date of his execution draws near. But Mirza refuses to bow. What follows is a brutal test of his spirit as he endures unspeakable torture, standing ...

On the Trail of the Tiger: Jacqueline Bodin and the Maharaja of Rajapuram (The Cases of Jacqueline Bodin Book 4) On the Trail of the Tiger A Jacqueline Bodin Mystery Tropical nights, a magnificent palace, and a tiger that brings fear and death. When the French detective Jacqueline Bodin travels with Lucien Dubois to the court of the Maharaja of Rajapuram, she is drawn into a case as dangerous as it is puzzling. Behind the glittering façade of the palace lie dark secrets, old power structures, and deadly intrigues. While a man eating tiger keeps the region in fear, signs of another threat ...

A major new history of Asia’s Second World War Blood Dawn offers a momentous new history of World War II in Asia. Drawing on deep archival research across continents, historian Hans van de Ven tells the dramatic story of how Asia’s people mobilized to defeat both Japanese aggression and...

In January 1907, Enrico Bertarelli and his wife set out on an extended holiday to India to tour the country. He traveled widely and kept a detailed journal, not only of the sights and attractions the country offered, but of its history and also his thoughts and feelings about colonial British rule, the condition and interactions of the various groups of natives and the general social mores in the country at the time. This book, translated into English for the first time, is a fascinating window into India at the turn of the 20th century, narrated by an acute European observer who, on the ...