The British Raj

London: Wayland Publishers, 1972. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Good. 128 pages. Illustrations. DJ has a taped tear at top near spine. This is one of the Wayland Documentary History Series. The contents include: Beginnings, 1683-1708, The Company Achieves Supremacy in India, 1708-1818; Towards the Abyss: The East India Company, 1818-57; The Great Mutiny, 1857--58; The Raj at its Height, 1858-1905; Towards Independence, 1905-47; Glossary: Some Indian Words; Table of Dates; Further Reading; List of Sources; Picture Credits; and Index. In this book, Dr. Judd tells the history of the British in India, from the first tentative contacts between the East India Company and the Indians to India's final march towards independence, and analyses the social, economic and political consequences of expanding trade, steady conquest and growing administrative burdens. Great Personalities and events dominate the story--Robert Clive and Warren Hastings, Curzon, Gandhi, and Jinnah; the Battle of Plassey (1757); The Black Hole of Calcutta, and the Indian Mutiny of 1857; the wars along the North-West Frontier, the Dreadful famine of 1889--90; the Amritsar massacre, and Gandi's civil disobedience movement. But above all, the author evokes the complex relationship which developed between the British and the Indians--the rulers and the ruled--and shows how the interaction of these two very different cultures affected the people's everyday lives. Illustrated throughout, this draws on a wide range of fascinating extracts. Denis Judd was born in 1938. He won a State Scholarship, took his first degree in Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford, and his Ph.D. at London University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has been Head of History, and is now Professor Emeritus of Imperial and Commonwealth History, at London Metropolitan University. In his work he has specialized in the British Empire and Commonwealth. Among his books, Empire is a history of the British Empire, and he has written The British Raj and several biographies, including King George VI and the authorized life of Alison Uttley. He has also written two novels. He has written for radio and has broadcast many times both as a presenter, consultant and interviewee for television and radio programs both in the UK and abroad. He is the editor of a series of concise histories - the Traveller's Histories - and is an Advisor to the BBC History Magazine. He has contributed reviews, articles and features to academic journals and the national broadsheets. By the end of the Napoleonic Wars, after a series of titanic struggles against the French and various local rulers during the eighteenth century, Britain had gained mastery of the subcontinent. This period, and the century and a half that followed, saw two powerful cultures locked in an often bloody battle over political control, land, trade and a way of life. In The British Raj, Denis Judd tells the fascinating story of the British impact upon India, capturing the essence of what the Raj really meant both for the British and their Indian subjects. Judd examines virtually every aspect of this long and controversial relationship, from the first tentative contacts between East and West, the foundation of the East India Company in 1600, the Victorian Raj in all its pomp and splendor, Gandhi's revolutionary tactics to overthrow the Raj and restore India to the Indians, and Lord Mountbatten's "swift surgery of partition" in 1947, creating the independent Commonwealth states of India and Pakistan. Against this epic backdrop, and using many revealing contemporary accounts, Judd explores the consequences of British rule for both rulers and ruled. Were the British intent on development or exploitation? Were they the "civilizing force" they claimed? What were Britain's greatest legacies--democracy and the rule of law, or cricket and an efficient railway system? Vividly written, based on extensive research, with many new and colorful documentary extracts and literary sources to illustrate the story, The British Raj provides an engaging account of a key moment in British Imperial history.