Empire and Gunpowder
Empire and Gunpowder

Author: Moumita Chowdhury

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-07-19

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 1000603970

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book focuses on the relation between technology, warfare and state in South Asia in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. It explores how gunpowder and artillery played a pivotal role in the military ascendancy of the East India Company in India. The monograph argues that the contemporary Indian military landscape was extremely dynamic, with contemporary indigenous polities (Mysore, the Maratha Confederacy and the Khalsa Kingdom) attempting to transform their military systems by modelling their armies on European lines. It shows how the Company established an edge through an efficient bureaucracy and a standardised manufacturing system, while the Indian powers primarily focused on continuous innovation and failed to introduce standardisation of production. Drawing on archival records from India and the UK, this volume makes a significant intervention in our understanding of the rise of the British Empire in South Asia. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of history, especially military history, military and strategic studies and South Asian studies.

Indian Club Swinging and the Birth of Global Fitness
Indian Club Swinging and the Birth of Global Fitness

Author: Conor Heffernan

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-12-14

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1350401633

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Emerging in colonial India, the fitness fad that was Indian Club Swinging became a global exercise practice in the early 19th century. Used by physicians, soldiers, gymnasts, children and athletes alike, clubs were used to solve numerous social concerns and ills, and often prescribed to treat everything from depression to spinal abnormalities. This book provides a definitive account of the rise and spread of club swinging as it spread from India to Europe and America, asking why and how it became so popular. Discussing the global, commercial fitness culture of the 19th century, Indian Club Swinging and the Birth of Global Fitness explores how the popularity of this exercise reflected much deeper global and domestic concerns about body image, military preparation and education. Addressing broader questions about nationalism, gender, race and popular commerce across the British Empire, it highlights the origins of our modern transnational fitness culture and shows how it intersected with global and colonial understandings of health, medicine and education.