Ten Cities That Made an Empire

and led to the unpopular and deeply resented annexations of Satara in 1848, Jhansi in 1853 and Nagpur in 1854; but Avadh was an acquisition on a far different scale from anything yet attempted, and was practiced on “a faithful and unresisting ally” without even the nominal justification of the absence of a recognised heir, and with only the “fictit

There is a view among the British, however, that the Raj was entirely beneficial to the Indian people. Many of those who voted in the 2016 Referendum, to leave the European Union, would probably endorse that opinion. Such individuals have been tempted by the idea that Britain can be ‘great’ again, that she can somehow return to those glorious days

Slowly Surat's fortunes—and those of the countryside surrounding it—began to fade. The river port was capricious, flooding the town each monsoon and at other times silting over, becoming impassable. The city was plagued by chronic conflict among various European and Muslim rulers, as well as attacks by pirates and marauders lusting after its treasu

This new Imperial approach was one that Lord Wellesley was determined not only to make his own, but to embody. His Imperial policies would effectively bring into being the main superstructure of the Raj as it survived up to 1947; he also brought with him the arrogant and disdainful British racial attitudes that buttressed and sustained it.