- Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd; New edition edition (20 July 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1840222328
- ISBN-13: 978-1840222326
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 18.8 x 1.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
717,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #65 in Books > History > Countries & Regions > Asia > 1500-1900
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Product Description
Product Description
The Indian mutiny of 1857 was a huge and bloody struggle, a 'Devil's Wind' of retribution and death that swept across the jungles, hills and parched plains of the Indian sub-continent. The author vividly recaptures the experience and atmosphere of the time - the smell of battle, the tired men and forced marches, the sieges and the appalling massacres - all enacted beneath the relentless, cruel heat of the Indian sun. It was a war of treachery and incompetence, desperately fought without mercy on either side, but a war of heroism and endurance. It threw up remarkable personalities: Nicholson, who recaptured Delhi; Henry Lawrence, the defender of Lucknow; 'Holy' Havelock, the bible-thumping general who relieved Lucknow only to find himself trapped; and the dour uncompromising Colin Campbell, who was sent from England to return India to sanity.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I had remembered reading this book a number of years ago and could not tally my memory with the hostile reviews I read on Amazon! On buying and rereading, I conclude that my memory is accurate. The book is very well-written, concise and historically accurate. It is so well-written that one is swept up in the narrative, almost like reading a novel. This is in fact still the best short introduction to the subject. The illustrations in the Wordsworth edition also help with the 'atmosphere' of the tale.
I can only attribute the accusations of racism and imperialism against the author to political bias. Harris is in fact extremely critical of men like Neill who succumbed to blood lust. He is clear about the numerous errors of judgement by individual British officers. He is clear about the ditching of principles by men intent on revenge. It is also made clear why such things could happen. He cites the sorrowful journal of a man who writes that he "is no longer a Christian" because of his thirst for revenge. I find this deeply moving. This man was broken by what he saw at Cawnpore - the severed head of an eighteen year old English woman, the body parts of babies, the well of corpses. This is not racism. It is emotional collapse. To report it is not racism either.(Incidentally among the numerous British acts of revenge there are NO known incidents where women or children were killed.)One English officer lost 32 relatives to the insurrectionists. I think he was quite upset about it!
Other reviews have got mixed up between the words of the author and the words of those he quotes. The author is balanced. The British voices quoted are very biased. It would be better to enquire why there are so few quotations from their enemies. The simple fact is that the recorded statements of the mutineers and their allies are so damning to modern ears that to include them would be 'too balanced'. Incitement to genocide never sounds very appealing. Their actual attempt at genocide (against all Europeans and Eurasians, by the way, not just the British) was never going to result in them looking good.
Read this book! It illustrates the highest and lowest in human nature. For that very reason it is fascinating. It is stirring military history that engages the reader emotionally, a rarity in the genre.
This book is too 'real' for some.
I can only attribute the accusations of racism and imperialism against the author to political bias. Harris is in fact extremely critical of men like Neill who succumbed to blood lust. He is clear about the numerous errors of judgement by individual British officers. He is clear about the ditching of principles by men intent on revenge. It is also made clear why such things could happen. He cites the sorrowful journal of a man who writes that he "is no longer a Christian" because of his thirst for revenge. I find this deeply moving. This man was broken by what he saw at Cawnpore - the severed head of an eighteen year old English woman, the body parts of babies, the well of corpses. This is not racism. It is emotional collapse. To report it is not racism either.(Incidentally among the numerous British acts of revenge there are NO known incidents where women or children were killed.)One English officer lost 32 relatives to the insurrectionists. I think he was quite upset about it!
Other reviews have got mixed up between the words of the author and the words of those he quotes. The author is balanced. The British voices quoted are very biased. It would be better to enquire why there are so few quotations from their enemies. The simple fact is that the recorded statements of the mutineers and their allies are so damning to modern ears that to include them would be 'too balanced'. Incitement to genocide never sounds very appealing. Their actual attempt at genocide (against all Europeans and Eurasians, by the way, not just the British) was never going to result in them looking good.
Read this book! It illustrates the highest and lowest in human nature. For that very reason it is fascinating. It is stirring military history that engages the reader emotionally, a rarity in the genre.
This book is too 'real' for some.
3 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book describes in evocative detail the lengths the British went to to secure and maintain their grip on their most prized 'possession', but the author cannot hide his sneering contempt for the Indian peoples and their fight for self-determination - his racism is evident throughout the book, as is his barely concealed anger at the loss of British lives at Indian hands; although this all took place 150 years ago, the outrage is still evident and the book is redolent with it - John Harris obviously believes that British occupation of India and the enrichment of the colonial adventurers (to the detriment of India) was the best thing that ever happened to India, and the hostility and extreme lack of gratitude of the Indians, culminating in their insurrection, was unwarranted, and that therefore the British retaliations and reprisals following the mutiny were wholly deserved and insufficient. Leaving that aside, the descriptions of the various campaigns were well described, but confusing if one doesn't have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the geography of India, so more maps and illustrations would have been helpful, as would have been a slightly more objective viewpoint; as noted earlier, the author seems to have taken the whole mutiny and its causes and outcomes very personally, and describes the period in terms that one would expect from an arrogant middle-class Victorian, not an enlightened modern day commentator - perhaps nothing ever really changes after all.
6 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book drips with old-fashioned racism and outrage that anyone would ever want to rebel against the british empire. It could have been written a hundred years ago. Balancing that, it's readable and concise, but could use more maps to illustrate the action for people not familiar with India.
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