Product Description

From bestselling author of 'Tommy' and 'Redcoat', the rich history of the British soldier in India from Clive to the end of empire considered to be the jewel in Britain's imperial crown. 'Sahib' is a broad and sweeping military history of the British soldier in India, but its focus, like that of Tommy and Redcoat before it, will be on the men who served in India and the women who followed them across that vast and dusty continent, bore their children, and, all too often, mopped their brows as they died. The book begins with the remarkable story of India's rise from commercial enclave to great Empire, from Clive's victory of Plassey, through the imperial wars of the 18th-century and the Afghan and Sikh Wars of the 1840s, through the bloody turmoil of the Mutiny, and the frontier campaigns at the century's end. With its focus on the experience of ordinary soldiers, 'Sahib' explains to us why soldiers of the Raj had joined the army, how they got to India and what they made of it when they arrived. The book examines Indian soldiering in peace and war, from Kipling's 'snoring barrack room' to storming parties assaulting mighty fortresses, cavalry swirling across open plains, and khaki columns inching their way between louring hills. Making full use of extensive and often neglected archive material in the India Office Library and National Army Museum, 'Sahib' will do for the British soldier in India -- whether serving a local ruler, forming part of the Indian army, or soldiering with a British regiment -- what 'Tommy' has done for the ordinary soldier in World War I.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #176487 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 572 pages

Review
'For anyone interested in the Raj this book is a must.' Observer 'Richard Holmes's mastery of the British Army is unequalled!A worthy memorial of one of the extraordinary experiences in British history.' Max Hastings, Sunday Telegraph 'Holmes is a passionate and richly entertaining champion of the rank and file.' Daily Telegraph 'Insightful, colourful, relevant and pithy.' The Times Praise for 'Redcoat': 'It would be hard to exaggerate the excellence of this book. vivid, comprehensive, well writtten, pacy, colourful.' Simon Heffer Reviews of Holmes' previous titles: 'Redcoat is not just a work of history but of enthusiasm and unparalleled knowledge. This is a wonderful book, doing justice to men who have long deserved a chronicler of Richard Holmes' skill.' Bernard Cornwell 'It would be hard to exaggerate the excellence of this book. Vivid, comprehensive, well-written, pacy, colourful.' Simon Heffer 'A wonderful book, full of anecdote and good sense. Anyone who has enjoyed a Sharpe story will love it.' Bernard Cornwell, Daily Mail 'Richard Holmes (is) ! a narrative historian without peer and a master at marshalling first-hand accounts ! He opens with a magnificent set piece ! thirty tight-packed chapters follow, each crammed with incident and insight as Holmes, in his determination to cover every inch of the ground, hurries the reader through 164 years of campaigning and, for good measure, through every ditch and hurdle of the Anglo-Indian encounter. A rattling good gallop, certainly' Spectator 'Beautifully written, Redcoat is a vivid account of squalor and suffering almost beyond belief, for the men, their wives and followers, and their horses. One of the best chapters is a description of barrack-room life that will turn a few stomachs in this more fastidious age.' John Canon, TLS 'Redcoat is the story of the British soldier from the Seven Year War through to the Mutiny and Crimea. It is consistently entertaining, full of brilliantly chosen anecdotes and rattles along at a good light infantry pace.' David Crane, Spectator 'All the best-known soldier writers are discussed here, and their anecdotes are told with enthusiasm and aplomb!This is an army from another world, and Redcoat is a splendidly entertaining, moving and informative description of its strengths and foibles.' Hew Strachan, Daily Telegraph

Literary Review
'the great achievement of this book is to give us a soldier's-eye view of life in India'

The Observer
'impressive...there are some spectacular anecdotes and a colourful cast...for anyone seriously interested in the Raj, this book is a must"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant, engaging and full of trivia
In response to the other review posted of this book,you are just plain wrong! Richard Holmes has once again excelled himself with a truly compulsive history that provides some excellent elaboration on the contents of his earlier works "Redcoat" and "Wellington". Admittedly the first 90 or so pages which outline the background of the British in India and Afghanistan are pretty hard work but once you get past those this book is a treasure trove of rarely discussed historical nuggets. There are excellent descriptions of the joys of "pig-sticking", the British sport of choice, the (usually brutal) punishments meted out to recalcitrant soldiers, and just as you expect the book to be winding down there are excellent closing chapters on sanitation, prostitution and the bizarre matrimonial escapades of the soldiers and officers. Some geo-political background is necessary, for example,to understand the differences between British Army troops, East India Company troops and privateers but in the main this book gives an excellent "ground-level" view of 18th & 19th century soldiering.

A proper pucka book
Having previously read Holmes's other works, "Redcoat" and "Tommy", I knew what to expect, and, all in all, I wasn't disappointed. As the author says in the preface, this isn't a moralizing book. It isn't in the remit of the book to serve judgement on the rights and wrongs of empire. What Holmes actually does is say what happened and what were the day-to-day experiences of the people involved, whether they be British soldiers, sepoys, British civilians or Indian civilians. This book is packed full of the most interesting extracts from the letters and journals of those involved. However, not wishing to detract too much from an engaging book, the prose is a little bit clunky at times; I found myself re-reading sentences quite regularly and even then only understanding the gist of what was intended, rather than the details. One slight problem I encountered was the naming of the chapters being a bit mysterious. I couldn't consistently predict from its title what each chapter would be about and they often digressed and overlapped. Still, it's a welcome addition to my collection -- well worth a read.

not his best
I have read and enjoyed most of his works but this one was hard going - in fact boring. I hoped for much more real life account on the frontier soldier, but he goes on and on about the top political level of governing India which is not the title of the book!

I might go back to it (only got a few chapters in) but I will need to be bored.