"The present volume initially started as a sequel to "The British Raj and its Indian Armed Forces, 1857-1939", edited by late professor Partha Sarathi Gupta and Anirudh Deshpande, and published by Oxford University Press, New Delhi, in 2002"--Pref.
World War II was a global catastrophe. Far broader than just the critical struggle between Allies and Axis, its ramifications were felt throughout the world. It was a time of social relocation, reorienting ideas of patriotism and geographical attachment, and forcing the movement of people across oceans and continents. In India at War, Yasmin Khan offers an account of India's role in the conflict, one that takes into consideration the social, economic, and cultural changes that occurred in South Asia between 1939 and 1945-and reveals how vital the Commonwealth's contribution was to the war effort. Khan's sweeping work centers on the lives of ordinary Indian people, exploring the ways they were affected by a cataclysmic war with origins far beyond Indian shores. In manpower alone, India's contribution was staggering; it produced the largest volunteer army in world history, with 2.5 million men. Indians were engaged in making the raw materials and food stuffs needed by the Allies, and became involved in the construction of airstrips, barracks, hospitals, internee camps, roads and railways. Their lives were also profoundly affected by the presence of the large Allied army in the region, including not only British but American, African, and Chinese troops. Madras was bombed by the Japanese and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were occupied, while the Bengal famine of 1943-in which perhaps three million Bengalis died-was a man-made disaster precipitated by the effects of the war. This authoritative account offers a critically important look at the contributions of colonial manpower and resources essential to sustaining the war, and emphasizes the significant ways in which the conflict shaped modern India.
This collection of seventeen essays based on archival data breaks new ground as regards the contribution of the Indian Army in British war effort during the two World Wars around various parts of the globe.
A vivid narrative of an ill-fated Pan American flight during World War II that captures the dramatic backstories of its passengers and, through them, the impact of Americans' global connections. On February 21, 1943, Pan American Airways' celebrated seaplane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from New York's Marine Air Terminal and island-hopped its way across the Atlantic Ocean. Arriving at Lisbon the following evening, it crashed in the Tagus River, killing twenty-four of its thirty-nine passengers and crew. Americans in a World at War traces the backstories of seven worldly Americans aboard that plane, their personal histories, their politics, and the paths that led them toward war. Combat soldiers made up only a small fraction of the millions of Americans, both in and out of uniform, who scattered across six continents during the Second World War. This book uncovers a surprising history of American noncombatants abroad in the years leading into the twentieth century's most consequential conflict. Long before GIs began storming beaches and liberating towns, Americans had forged extensive political, economic, and personal ties to other parts of the world. These deep and sometimes contradictory engagements, which preceded the bombing of Pearl Harbor, would shape and in turn be transformed by the US war effort. The intriguing biographies of the Yankee Clipper's passengers--among them an Olympic-athlete-turned-export salesman, a Broadway star, a swashbuckling pilot, and two entrepreneurs accused of trading with the enemy--upend conventional American narratives about World War II. As their travels take them from Ukraine, France, Spain, Panama, Cuba, and the Philippines to Java, India, Australia, Britain, Egypt, the Soviet Union, and the Belgian Congo, among other hot spots, their movements defy simple boundaries between home front and war front. Americans in a World at War offers fresh perspectives on a transformative period of US history and global connections during the "American Century."
The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire offers the most comprehensive treatment of the causes, course, and consequences of the ends of empire in the twentieth century. The volume's contributors convey the global reach of decolonization, with chapters analysing the empires of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, China and Japan. The Handbook combines broad, regional treatments of decolonization with chapter contributions constructed around particular themes or social issues. It considers how the history of decolonization is being rethought as a result of the rise of the 'new' imperial history, and its emphasis on race, gender, and culture, as well as the more recent growth of interest in histories of globalization, transnational history, and histories of migration and diaspora, humanitarianism and development, and human rights. The Handbook, in other words, seeks to identify the processes and commonalities of experience that make decolonization a unique historical phenomenon with a lasting resonance. In light of decades of historical and social scientific scholarship on modernization, dependency, neo-colonialism, 'failed state' architectures and post-colonial conflict, the obvious question that begs itself is 'when did empires actually end?' In seeking to unravel this most basic dilemma the Handbook explores the relationship between the study of decolonization and the study of globalization. It connects histories of the late-colonial and post-colonial worlds, and considers the legacies of empire in European and formerly colonised societies.
Radio monitoring is an important feature of broadcasting history and monitoring reports form a treasure trove for historians. This volume offers six case studies that provide new insights on the importance of radio monitoring during the Second World War and the Cold War. Radio broadcasting is not only about transmission, but also about listening. From the start of the medium’s history, radio organisations institutionalised services to monitor the broadcasts of stations from all over the globe and write daily reports about them. This act of listening provided valuable information about the situation in various parts of the world or insights into the communication strategies of broadcasters. As a result, collections of monitoring reports are bulky, containing countless documents which form a treasure trove for radio historians. At the same time researchers need to be aware that these sources are far from neutral: monitoring services often serve clear geopolitical objectives in context of conflict situations. This volume explores the rich history of radio monitoring during the Second World War and the Cold War. As such it offers original case studies that shed light on previously unknown radio histories. Moreover, all the authors reflect on the use of monitoring reports as a historical source and as such provide methodological guidelines. This volume will be a key resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of media history, war studies, media studies, sociology, and cultural studies. It was originally published in Media History.
**Short-listed for the Society for Army Historical Research UK's Templer Medal Best First Book Prize, 2020** In the Indian Army of the British Raj, the officer corps was “reserved for the governing race”— in other words, the British. Only in 1917, a mere thirty years before India won its freedom, did the Raj permit Indians into the Army’s officer corps, thus slowly beginning its Indianization. Yet it is often forgotten that this decision was the culmination of a hundred-year-long debate. Based on meticulous archival research in Britain and India, Indianization, the Officer Corps, and the Indian Army breaks new ground by offering readers the first detailed account of this generally forgotten debate. It traces the myriad schemes and counter-schemes the debate generated, the complex twists and turns it took, and how it engaged both British policymakers anxious to maintain control as well as nationalist Indian leaders agitating for greater self-government. This work also offers insights into the martial races concept, the 1857 uprising, and the impact of Anglo-Indian ideology upon the Indian Army. Clearly written and carefully argued, it is an original and defining contribution to military/war and society history, the history of colonial India and its army, the history of British empire, the history of racism, and civil-military relations.
“You offer yourself to be slain,” General Sir John Hackett once observed, remarking on the military profession. “This is the essence of being a soldier.” For this reason as much as any other, the British army has invariably been seen as standing apart from other professions—and sometimes from society as a whole. A British Profession of Arms effectively counters this view. In this definitive study of the late Victorian army, distinguished scholar Ian F. W. Beckett finds that the British soldier, like any other professional, was motivated by considerations of material reward and career advancement. Within the context of debates about both the evolution of Victorian professions and the nature of military professionalism, Beckett considers the late Victorian officer corps as a case study for weighing distinctions between the British soldier and his civilian counterparts. Beckett examines the role of personality, politics, and patronage in the selection and promotion of officers. He looks, too, at the internal and external influences that extended from the press and public opinion to the rivalry of the so-called rings of adherents of major figures such as Garnet Wolseley and Frederick Roberts. In particular, he considers these processes at play in high command in the Second Afghan War (1878–81), the Anglo-Zulu War (1879), and the South African War (1899–1902). Based on more than thirty years of research into surviving official, semiofficial, and private correspondence, Beckett’s work offers an intimate and occasionally amusing picture of what might affect an officer’s career: wealth, wives, and family status; promotion boards and strategic preferences; performance in the field and diplomatic outcomes. It is a remarkable depiction of the British profession of arms, unparalleled in breadth, depth, and detail.
During the Second World War, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) suffered one of its greatest defeats in Burma. Both in Malaya and Burma, the bulk of the British Commonwealth forces comprised Indian units. Few people know that by 1944, about 70 percent of the Allied ground personnel in Burma was composed of soldiers of the Indian Army. The Indian Army comprised British-led Indian units, British officered units of the Indian princely states and the British units attached to the Government of India. Based on the archival materials collected from India and the United Kingdom, Sepoys against the Rising Sun assesses the combat/military/battlefield effectiveness of the Indian Army against the IJA during World War II. The volume is focussed on the tactical innovations and organizational adaptations which enabled the sepoys to overcome the Japanese in the trying terrain of Burma.