Empire and Gunpowder

Empire and Gunpowder

Author: Moumita Chowdhury

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-07-19

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 1000603970

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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.


Warfare and Society in British India, 1757–1947

Warfare and Society in British India, 1757–1947

Author: Ashutosh Kumar

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-12-30

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1000800555

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This book explores the intricate and intimate relationship between military organization, imperial policy, and society in colonial South Asia. The chapters in the volume focus on technology, logistics, and state building. The present volume highlights the salient features of expansion and consolidation of imperial control over the subcontinent, and ultimate demise of the Raj. Further, it turns the spotlight on to subaltern challenges to imperialism as well as the role of non-combatants in warfare. The volume: • Deals with both conventional and guerrilla conflicts and focuses on the frontiers (both North-West and North-East, including Burma); • Looks at the army as an institution rather than present a chronological account of military operations, which highlights the complex and tortuous relationship between combat institution, colonial state, and Indian society; • Integrates top-down approaches in military and strategic studies with the bottom-up perspectives and discusses on how the conduct of war (organisation and technology) is related to the economic, societal, and cultural impact of war. A rich account of the British ‘Army in India’, this book will be essential reading for scholars and researchers of South Asian history, military history, political history, colonialism, and the British Empire.


Stronger Than a Hundred Men

Stronger Than a Hundred Men

Author: Terry S. Reynolds

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 9780801872488

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Like many apparently simple devices, the vertical water wheel has been around for so long that it is taken for granted. Yet this "picturesque artifact" was for centuries man's primary mechanical source of power and was the foundation upon which mills and other industries developed. Stronger than a Hundred Men explores the development of the vertical water wheel from its invention in ancient times through its eventual demise as a source of power during the Industrial Revolution. Spanning more than 2000 years, Terry Reynolds's account follows the progression of this labor-saving device from Asia to the Middle East, Europe, and America-covering the evolution of the water wheel itself, the development of dams and reservoirs, and the applications of water power.