https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk Henley-on-Thames Tue, 01 Jun 2021 16:08:15 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-Bell-Background-Blue-32x32.png https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk 32 32 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/peace-poverty-and-betrayal/ Thu, 25 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/peace-poverty-and-betrayal/ How can we explain Britain’s long rule in India beyond the clichés of ‘imperial’ versus ‘nationalist’ interpretations? In this new history, Roderick Matthews tells a more nuanced story of ‘oblige and rule’, the foundation of common purpose between colonisers and powerful Indians.Peace, Poverty and Betrayal argues that this was more a state of being than a system: British policy was never clear or consistent; the East India Company went from a manifestly incompetent ruler to, arguably, the world’s first liberal government; and among British and Indians alike there were both progressive and conservative attitudes to colonisation. Matthews skilfully illustrates that this very diversity and ambiguity of British-Indian relations also drove the social changes that led to the struggle for independence.Skewering the simplistic binaries that often dominate the debate, Peace, Poverty and Betrayal is a fresh and elegant history of British India.

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