Mutiny and Insurgency in India 1857–58

Name: Mutiny and Insurgency in India 1857–58
Rating: 4 (25 reviews)

by T. A. “Tony” Heathcote

First published 2007

Amazon

3.5(25)

Tony Heathcote examines the Indian Rebellion of 1857 as both a military uprising and a wider political crisis that shattered East India Company authority across much of northern India. Beginning with the mutiny among Bengal Army troops, he follows the spread of fighting through Delhi, Cawnpore, Lucknow and other centres, setting battlefield events against annexation, military grievances, social tensions and fears of religious interference.

Drawing on official records, regimental histories, memoirs and personal testimony, Heathcote describes the courage and brutality found on both sides and traces the escalating cycle of massacre and reprisal. He also follows the consequences beyond the fighting itself: the abolition of Company rule, the transfer of India to the Crown and the reorganisation of the army and imperial government after one of the defining crises of nineteenth-century British India.