The Company's Sword
The East India Company and the Politics of Militarism, 1644–1858
Seiten
2022
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-1-108-83388-2 (ISBN)
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-1-108-83388-2 (ISBN)
The Company's Sword reveals how the British East India Company acquired a private army and how Indian and European soldiers shaped the Company's expansion. Tracing the institutional development of the Company's armies alongside the rebellions that challenged its growth, Christina Welsch uncovers the militarism at the heart of colonial India.
In the late eighteenth century, it was a cliché that the East India Company ruled India 'by the sword.' Christina Welsch shows how Indian and European soldiers shaped and challenged the Company's political expansion and how elite officers turned those dynamics into a bid for 'stratocracy' – a state dominated by its army. Combining colonial records with Mughal Persian sources from Indian states, The Company's Sword offers new insight into India's eighteenth-century military landscape, showing how elite officers positioned themselves as the sole actors who could navigate, understand, and control those networks. Focusing on south India, rather than the Company's better-studied territories in Bengal, the analysis provides a new approach, chronology, and geography through which to understand the Company Raj. It offers a fresh perspective of the Company's collapse after the rebellions of 1857, tracing the deep roots of that conflict to the Company's eighteenth-century development.
In the late eighteenth century, it was a cliché that the East India Company ruled India 'by the sword.' Christina Welsch shows how Indian and European soldiers shaped and challenged the Company's political expansion and how elite officers turned those dynamics into a bid for 'stratocracy' – a state dominated by its army. Combining colonial records with Mughal Persian sources from Indian states, The Company's Sword offers new insight into India's eighteenth-century military landscape, showing how elite officers positioned themselves as the sole actors who could navigate, understand, and control those networks. Focusing on south India, rather than the Company's better-studied territories in Bengal, the analysis provides a new approach, chronology, and geography through which to understand the Company Raj. It offers a fresh perspective of the Company's collapse after the rebellions of 1857, tracing the deep roots of that conflict to the Company's eighteenth-century development.
Christina Welsch is Assistant Professor of the History of Britain and its Empire at Wooster College.
List of maps; List of figures; maps; Acknowledgements; A note on spelling and place names; Introduction; 1. Forging the sword; 2. The sepoy's oath; 3. Mercenaries, diplomats, and deserters; 4. The other revolution of 1776; 5. The empire preserved; 6. Stratocracy; 7. Breaking the officers' sword; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
Erscheinungsdatum | 16.08.2022 |
---|---|
Reihe/Serie | Critical Perspectives on Empire |
Zusatzinfo | Worked examples or Exercises |
Verlagsort | Cambridge |
Sprache | englisch |
Maße | 157 x 235 mm |
Gewicht | 588 g |
Themenwelt | Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte |
Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte | |
Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte | |
ISBN-10 | 1-108-83388-8 / 1108833888 |
ISBN-13 | 978-1-108-83388-2 / 9781108833882 |
Zustand | Neuware |
Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
aus dem Bereich
neueste Manipulationstechniken als Waffengattung der NATO
Buch | Softcover (2023)
Westend (Verlag)
CHF 33,55
Deutschlands Schwäche in der Zeitenwende
Buch | Softcover (2023)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
CHF 25,20