Why was Bismarck interested in England's problem -The Defence of India-? What was the part played by India in Berlin's diplomatic circles during the time of Imperialism? How did Kaiser Wilhelm II and the German Foreign Office react to growing Indian nationalism? How did Berlin become the center of Indian revolutionaries during the First World War? These are some of the questions dealt with in this book which is based mainly on documentary sources not previously used. Interesting and provocative material interpreted by a well informed author."
Germany always enjoyed a natural sympathy from the Indians primarily because of Max Müller, that renowned Oxford professor of Comparative Philology of German descent who, while doing painstaking pioneering researches into ancient Indian scripture, called India "the very paradise on earth", without ever visiting the country. In spite of this, because of the latent racism among the German commercial classes and the social aloofness of the German diplomats in India in order to avoid giving any chance of suspicion to the British rulers, a normal relation based on mutual trust and friendship between the Germans and the Indians remained a desideratum. Yet during the chequered period between the two World Wars, Germany was compelled to reckon with the growing self confidence of the Indians. Even Hitler had to appease the Indians in order to save the German trade in India. The book is a pioneering work on the extra-ordinary German Indian relations between 1922 and 1939 and based on German archival materials.
Providing a comprehensive survey of cutting edge scholarship in the field of German--Indian and South Asian Studies, the book looks at the history of German--Indian relations in the spheres of culture, politics, and intellectual life. Combining transnational, post-colonial, and comparative approaches, it includes the entire twentieth century, from the First World War and Weimar Republic to the Third Reich and Cold War era. The book first examines the ways in which nineteenth-century "Indomania" figured in the creation of both German national identity and modern German scholarship on the Orient, and it illustrates how German encounters with India in the Imperial era alternately destabilized and reinforced the orientalist, capitalist, and nationalist underpinnings of German modernity. Contributors discuss the full range of German responses to India, and South Asian perceptions of Germany against the backdrop of war and socio-political revolution, as well as the Third Reich's ambivalent perceptions of India in the context of racism, religion, and occultism. The book concludes by exploring German--Indian relations in the era of decolonization and the Cold War. Employing a diverse array of interdisciplinary approaches to understanding German--Indian encounters over the past two centuries, this book is of interest to students and scholars of Germany, India, Europe, and Asia, as well as history, political science, anthropology, philosophy, comparative literature, and religious studies.
India shares a multi-dimensional relationship with the Federal Republic of Germany. Germany is India's largest trading partner within the European Union, and is also a major source and destination of foreign direct investment, a significant donor, and an important source of technology. Drawing on English and German language source material, this book covers the evolution and expansion of India’s economic, political, defence, and scientific-technological ties with Germany from 1947 to the present day. It analyses mutual perceptions, highlights the elements of convergence and divergence, and discusses the challenges and prospects of this relationship in a world marked by geopolitical uncertainty. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)
Anarchism 1914–18 is the first systematic analysis of anarchist responses to the First World War. It examines the interventionist debate between Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta which split the anarchist movement in 1914 and provides a historical and conceptual analysis of debates conducted in European and American movements about class, nationalism, internationalism, militarism, pacifism and cultural resistance. Contributions discuss the justness of war, non-violence and pacifism, anti-colonialism, pro-feminist perspectives on war and the potency of myths about the war and revolution for the reframing of radical politics in the 1920s and beyond. Divisions about the war and the experience of being caught on the wrong side of the Bolshevik Revolution encouraged anarchists to reaffirm their deeply-held rejection of vanguard socialism and develop new strategies that drew on a plethora of anti-war activities.
This academic inquiry attempts to explore the state of relations between the German Christian missionaries and the Christian English government before and after World War I in India; the unpleasant consequences on German Missionaries and their families by the unwarranted attack of the German Cruiser SMS Emden on the Madras Presidency, aggravated further by the act of a former soldier in the guise of a missionary. It uncovers the involvement of the German military, Nachrichtenstelle für den Orient (NfO) and the Hindu revolutionaries in causing unrest in India to derail the economy and tarnish the image of the British Government. It exposes the joining forces of diametrically opposite ideologies, the German Christian Government, German Christian missionary in NfO and the Indian Hindu revolutionaries, on a common platform. Likewise, it uncovers the manipulation of the selfsame Scripture by the doctrinally similar Christian denominations to whip up their clashing nationalistic passions. Further, this research narrates the bitter experiences of separated missionary spouses, scattered family members, the plight of children, deportation, gruelling voyages, seasickness, experiences of missionaries as Prisoners of War (POW), etc. The following three methods were combined for this research: a World War I historiographical approach coupled with a collective biographical approach and an entanglement approach. I used archived and published English, German, and Tamil sources. The main archives were the Political Archives of the Foreign Office (PAAA) in Berlin, the archives of the Franckeshe Foundations in Halle, the Mission Society in Leipzig, the British Library in London, and the United Theological College Bangalore, the Gurukul Lutheran Theological College, Chennai and Avanakappakam (National Archives), Chennai, the materials in the Political Foreign Office (PAAA) in Berlin concerning the correspondence between the Intelligence Service for the Orient and the Indian revolutionaries; the archive of the Franckeshe Foundation in Halle contained in the two-volumes in one file from the Indian Mission during the war (1914 -1916) and The Leibniz Centre for Modern Orient archives Berlin.
The first collection of interdisciplinary and comparative studies focusing on diverse interactions among African, Asian, and Oceanic peoples and German colonizers
This is the first truly definitive history of the First World War, the war that has done most to shape the twentieth century. The first generation of its historians had access to only a limited range of sources, and their focus was primarily on military events. More recent approaches have embraced cultural, diplomatic, economic, and social history. In Hew Strachan's authoritative and readable history these fresh perspectives are incorporated with the military and strategic narrative. The result is an account that breaks the bounds of national preoccupations to become both global and comparative. To Arms, the first of three volumes in this magisterial study, examines not only the causes of the war and its opening clashes on land and sea, but also the ideas that underpinned it, and the motivations of the people who supported it. It provides full and pioneering accounts of the war's finances, of the war in Africa, and of the Central Powers' bid to widen the war outside Europe.
He has presented more than a dozen papers at academic conferences in North America, Europe, and South Asia, including Harvard University, Humboldt University, Heidelberg University's South Asia Institute, and the Max Mueller Bhavan in New Delhi, India.
