Christopher Bayly is Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Tim Harper is a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
"Forgotten Wars" movingly brings out the travails of ordinary
people who got caught up within a vicious cycle of political
turmoil, economic deprivation, and violence. This is a "must read"
for those interested in histories of British imperialism and
decolonization in Asia and those who would like an introduction to
the comparative regional histories of nation-states in Southeast
Asia after 1945.--Haimanti Roy"Journal of British Studies"
(04/01/2008)
[This] work casts new and important light on a shadowy aspect of
the Second World War, which deserves to be better understood.--Max
Hastings"Sunday Telegraph" (09/12/2004)
A panoramic chronicle of the war in South Asia ranging from swank
prewar Singapore to famine-ravaged Bengal, where three million
people died in 1943-1944...This is a brilliant marriage of social
and military history and a work of extraordinary literary
merit.--Benjamin Schwarz"The Atlantic" (11/01/2005)
A work at once scholarly and panoramic, it is as precise in
dissecting, say, the logistical problems the Japanese Army
confronted during the 1944 campaign in northern Burma ('the worst
defeat in Japan's military history') as it is arresting in
examining such sweeping events as the 1942 trek of some 600,000
Indian, Burmese and Anglo-Indian refugees from Burma through the
high passes of Assam into India, fleeing the advancing Japanese.
Hundreds of monographs have examined aspects of this story, but
Bayly and Harper's is the only history that matches the scope and
nuance of novels like J. G. Farrell's "Singapore Grip," Paul
Scott's "Raj Quartet," Anthony Burgess's "Enemy in the Blanket,"
Orwell's "Burmese Days," and Amitav Ghosh's "Glass Palace." Their
70-page prologue is a triumph of scene setting...The ignominious
British and Australian rout down the length of the Malay peninsula
(the retreating soldiers sardonically adopted the theme from the
Hope and Crosby movie "The Road to Singapor
Bayly and Harper's often-overlooked topic is the fate of Southeast
Asia--particularly India, Burma, Malaysia and Singapore--during the
war. The authors focus on the experiences of the people of those
countries, caught between the warring imperialists, callous British
and brutal Japanese..."Forgotten Armies" is superb at evoking the
wretchedness of this region, at conjuring the hardships its people
suffered (including the deaths of some 3 million Indians in the
terrible Bengal famine of 1943-44) and at demonstrating how
Burmese, Indian, Malaysian and Singaporean nationalism were
galvanized by these experiences. Bayly and Harper also deserve
credit for presenting a complete history of the war in Southeast
Asia: They are just as scrupulous--and just as good--at explaining
the strategy of the British and Japanese commanders as they are at
describing the lot of average soldiers and the misery of the
civilian populations. In this important work, a reader will meet a
vast range of characters
Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper...have produced a moving and
harrowing account of Britain's darkest hour in Asia, as Malaya,
Singapore, and Burma fell to the Japanese in the early years of the
pacific war. "Forgotten Armies" tells the story of this fall in
both a scholarly exacting way, drawing upon hundreds of diaries,
letters, archives, and interviews, and with great narrative
flare...This is a book that should be read by all students of
modern Southeast Asian history. Aside from its meticulous
indictment of colonialism and imperialism, its elegiac honoring of
the forgotten victims of war and its compelling narrative quality
indeed, this is a scholarly book that I trust would appeal to
general audiences demonstrate how Japanese ideologies of "race,"
"language," and "nation" were influential in the rise of
pan-Islamism, Malayan nationalism, and Burmese nationalism.--Andrew
C. Willford "Indonesia "
Compellingly written, profoundly well-researched...It sets out to
convey a story largely unknown to Western readers and it vividly
accomplishes this using source material that allows Asian voices to
speak for themselves.--Steven Schwamenfeld"Chinese Historical
Review" (04/01/2007)
The aim of this important and fluent book is to recover the history
of "the connected crescent of land between Calcutta and Singapore"
--including eastern India, Burma, and Malaya--during the years of
war and (for much of it) of Japanese occupation. The book's
emphasis is on the experiences of indigenous peoples, civilian as
well as military, as much as on their colonial rulers, and as much
on political, social, economic, medical, and cultural developments
as on the military campaigns themselves. In all this, it is
strikingly successful...Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper have
unearthed much new material...and achieved immediacy through truly
prodigious research in archives in Britain, Malaysia, and
Singapore...This is an outstanding book, and a very significant
addition to our understanding of this period. The authors are to be
congratulated on the scope and depth of their erudition, the skill
of their writing, and the subtlety and sophistication of their
analysis. This book is likely
This book looks at the waning days of the British Empire in its
Asian crescent, stretching from India through Malaya and down to
Singapore, as social, political, and military cataclysms shook the
region during World War II. Bayly and Harper evoke a drama
involving millions--'forgotten armies' of soldiers, laborers,
native guerrillas, political activists, and refugees propelled
throughout British Asia during the war, thus uniting what had been
isolated and moribund colonial enclaves. As war engulfed these
enclaves, the entire colonial society was routed, killed, or
captured. This laid bare forever the myth of European mastery and
transformed the way natives of the region saw themselves. The
subsequent Japanese occupation inspired a deeply rooted culture of
resistance and shaped the ensuing nationalist struggles for
independence after the war. The authors have performed a valuable
service by giving us a comprehensive, multifaceted account of these
events. Both erudite and engrossing, thi
This book's theme is in its subtitle -- a nuanced study of the
collapse of the century-and-a-half-old British imperium in South
Asia, out of which came the South Asian world of today...Reynolds
has researched this fascinating story with meticulous care. It is
hard to believe there are any relevant documents or secondary
sources he has missed. The evidence is marshalled clearly and the
result is a first-rate case study, not only of the tension that
lay, barely concealed, under the surface of the Anglo-American
alliance, but of the problems that powerful covert action agencies
can pose for their creators.--Raymond A. Callahan "International
Historical Review "
This is a spectacular book: in its scope, encyclopaedic knowledge,
understanding of southeast Asia, and the light it throws on a
neglected subject, the struggle for British Asia...The battle for
British Asia has been largely ignored compared to the war on the
western front. It is also a history that has been overwhelmingly
told in British terms. The authors deploy their intimate knowledge
of the region to provide us with a very different story. Southeast
Asia is a region of enormous complexity, a rich tapestry of races
and cultures. As the Japanese forces carried all before them, the
authors describe the way in which people were mobilised and how the
various responses became powerful determinants of the final
outcome.--Martin Jacques"The Guardian" (01/22/2005)
Truly magnificent..."Forgotten Armies" is the finest history of
this region (and our country) that I have read. I cannot recommend
it highly enough.--Kam Raslan"Malaysia Star" (08/26/2007)
ÝThis¨ work casts new and important light on a shadowy aspect of
the Second World War, which deserves to be better understood. --
Max Hastings "Sunday Telegraph" (09/12/2004)
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