ISBN: 0521595576
Publisher: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

India’s struggle for independence was arguably the most momentous of the twentieth century, and central to it was the generation of powerful nationalist forces. In a series of detailed studies Anthony Low shows how the ambiguity of the British position conditioned the distinctive character of this struggle: how the British determination to hold fast to their Indian empire prior to 1942 was nonetheless complemented by their reluctance to resist their nationalist opponents in the unyielding ways of the French in Vietnam and the Dutch in Indonesia. Much that Gandhi did, Professor Low concludes, would been impossible in Indonesia and Vietnam, but astutely fitted the peculiar conditions of the nationalist struggle against the British in India. Published on the fiftieth anniversary of Indian independence, Britain and Indian Nationalism makes a major contribution to the historiography of modern India, to Britain’s relations with its empire, and to the history of decolonisation in the twentieth century.
ISBN: 0521550173
Publisher: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

ISBN: 0521002540
Publisher: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

This revised edition of Robert Stern’s book brings India’s story up-to-date. This is a colourful, readable and comprehensive introduction to modern India. Since its original publication in 1993, much has altered and, yet, central to the author’s argument remains his belief in the remarkable continuity and vitality of India’s social systems and its resilience in the face of change. In a journey through its family households and villages, the author explains its long-lived and little understood caste and class systems, its venerable faiths and extraordinary ethnic diversity, its history as ‘the jewel in the crown’ of British imperialism and its post-Independence career as a major agricultural and industrial nation. While paradoxes abound in an India that is constantly transforming, Stern demonstrates how and why it remains the largest and most enduring democracy in the developing world.
ISBN: 052154081X
Publisher: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS