In 1798 Valentine Blacker, the son of an Irish clergyman, born in Armagh, left the United Kingdom for a military career in the Madras Army. He was favoured by the presence in India of his uncle, Colonel Barry Close, the Adjutant General. His active service as a young cavalry officer in Southern India covered several wars and rebellions. He was wounded, suffered disease and the loss of many friends. From the day of his arrival, for the next fifteen years, he wrote regularly to his father until the latter's death in 1813. The letters to some extent expose the truth of how the British held India. Rebellion was ruthlessly crushed, wounded executed on the battlefield and if besieged garrisons failed to surrender, after a successful storm, they were 'put to the sword.' This was viewed as part of the usages of war by either side, and the letters are intermixed with endearments for his family and his regret at the lack of correspondence from home. In juxtaposition to the executions following a native infantry mutiny in 1806, the 'officer's mutiny' of 1809 was dealt with by the utmost leniency. The East India Company is spared little criticism for its government of Madras and mismanagement of the army. The correspondence ceases in 1813, but Valentines career progressed until the end of the 3rd Maratha and Pindari War of 1817-1819 when he was the the Quartermaster General of the Madras Army, and wrote 'A Memoir of the Operations of the British Army in India.' In 1823 he was promoted to Lieut. Col. and appointed The Surveyor General of India at Calcutta where he died in 1826.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contents: Preface-- Introduction--
• 1926: the General Strike and the coal dispute--
• 1927: the Trade Disputes Act and the Prayer Book controversy--
• 1928: the de-rating scheme and the liberal revival--
• 1929: the General Election and the Irwin Declaration--
• 1930: the Conservative Party crisis and the round table conference--
• 1931: the survival of Baldwin and the Irwin-Gandhi pact-- Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Whilst serving in the prestigious post of Viceroy of India between 1926 and 1931, Lord Irwin (later the Earl of Halifax) was kept informed about political events in Britain by frequent and lengthy letters from Cabinet Ministers, senior Conservative MPs and other prominent figures, such as the editor of The Times. Covering events from the General Strike of May 1926 to Irwin's negotiation of a pact with Gandhi in March 1931, these private and previously unpublished letters mix analysis and gossip. They offer a frank account from within the highest political circles of the Baldwin government of 1924-29 and the serious crisis in the Conservative Party which followed in 1929-31. There is also much commentary on major figures such as Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill and Ramsay MacDonald. Of great depth and richness, and emanating from experienced and shrewd political insiders, this collection is an essential historical source for British history between the two world wars.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contents: Preface-- Introduction--
• 1926: the General Strike and the coal dispute--
• 1927: the Trade Disputes Act and the Prayer Book controversy--
• 1928: the de-rating scheme and the liberal revival--
• 1929: the General Election and the Irwin Declaration--
• 1930: the Conservative Party crisis and the round table conference--
• 1931: the survival of Baldwin and the Irwin-Gandhi pact-- Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Whilst serving in the prestigious post of Viceroy of India between 1926 and 1931, Lord Irwin (later the Earl of Halifax) was kept informed about political events in Britain by frequent and lengthy letters from Cabinet Ministers, senior Conservative MPs and other prominent figures, such as the editor of The Times. Covering events from the General Strike of May 1926 to Irwin's negotiation of a pact with Gandhi in March 1931, these private and previously unpublished letters mix analysis and gossip. They offer a frank account from within the highest political circles of the Baldwin government of 1924-29 and the serious crisis in the Conservative Party which followed in 1929-31. There is also much commentary on major figures such as Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill and Ramsay MacDonald. Of great depth and richness, and emanating from experienced and shrewd political insiders, this collection is an essential historical source for British history between the two world wars.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• INTRODUCTION: 'KANTAK'S LIFE TRAJECTORY'
• 'THE GANDHI-KANTAK RELATIONSHIP'
• 'MAHARASHTRA'S POLITICAL PROGRESSION'
• 'GANDHIJI'S VOICE IN KANTAK'S WRITING'
• "TENSION BETWEEEN KANTAK'S FEMINISM AND GANDHIAN IDEOLOGY'
• GANDHIJI'S LETTERS: SELECTED LETTERS FROM GANDHIJI TO KANTAK, 28 FEBRUARY 1929 TO 16 JANUARY 1948 (CONTEXTUALIZED BY KANTAK)
• KANTAK'S NOVELS: EXCERPTS FROM KAAM AND KAAMINI (LOVE AND THE BELOVED)
• AGNIYAAN (A CHARIOT OF FIRE)
• KANTAK'S NON-FICTION WRITINGS: EXCERPTS FROM SATYAGRAHI MAHARASHTRA (MAHARASHTRA ENGRAVED IN SATYAGRAHA)
• HINDI STRIYANCHE JIVAN (THE LIFE OF INDIAN WOMEN).
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

An important feminist thinker, writer, and activist, Prema Kantak's contributions to Indian feminist thought and the nationalist movement have been largely neglected in scholarly studies. Kantak, a one-time resident of Gandhi's ashram, forged a special, life-long bond with the Mahatma, and was hugely influenced by his thought and persona. She rose to prominence as a feminist writer with strong, radical convictions and also as a forceful proponent of Gandhian political and social ideals in Maharashtra. This volume brings together rare Gandhi-Kantak correspondence that provides many new insights not only into this unique relationship and Kantak's life and radical thought, but also into the complexities of Gandhi's political and social ideas-especially his understanding of the role of women in the nationalist movement. Their correspondence, marked by loving devotion on the one hand and encouragement and nurturing on the other, is replete not only with an unusual mix of Kantak's naivete, hero-worship, and self-doubt, but also reveals interesting facts about a much-deliberated and oft-researched topic-Gandhi's relationship with his women followers. Together with original translations of Kantak's writings and a comprehensive Introduction that explores various dimensions of this deeply-personal relationship, their divergent thinking, as well as the political climate in Maharashtra during the nationalist period, this volume is a timely addition to the body of work on neglected figures in Indian feminist history as well the Gandhi corpus.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

The new series of "Spellmount Military Memoirs" provides rare and sought-after texts for the collector of classic historical works, together with rigorously selected personal narratives never before in print - destined to become classics in their own right. "Letters from the Empire" is one such work. From 17 trunks of correspondence and photographs in a Lakeland attic comes this eyewitness account of a soldier's life at a pivotal moment in the history of the British Empire. Allan Marriot Hutchins, handsome, quick-witted and adventurous, was one of thousands of young men who, in 1900, volunteered to fight the Boers in a war that foreshadowed the later carnage of the twentieth century, fought with maxim guns, heavy artillery and bitter reprisals against guerrillas and civilians. Allan served as a yeomanry trooper in South Africa and later as a commissioned officer in India where he distinguished himself in the Abor campaign to secure the little-explored frontier between Assam and China. His letters home and the letters he received, his diaries and thoughts paint a picture of both the man and the wheels of history turning.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Is a story that has waited 200 years to be told. The journals of Lady Henrietta Clive take us on a double journey, across war-torn southern India and into the troubled minds of three ancestors aristocratic women in the last decade of the 18th Century. This book is edited and annotated by the Texican anthropologist, Nancy Shields.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)