Mutiny at the margins : new perspectives on the Indian uprising of 1857.

The mutiny of a large part of the East India Company's Bengal Army in 1857 was the most dramatic episode in the history of British India. Despite the salience of the "Great Sepoy Mutiny" in the history of the Raj, scholars have hitherto mostly avoided it, leaving a gap filled by popularizers and novelists. These four volumes--with three more to come--mark a welcome rediscovery of 1857 by professional historians drawn together from across the globe for the University of Edinburgh's "Mutiny at the Margins" project, which more than lives up to its aim of taking a new look at 1857. The volumes' 43 essays cover the widespread, simmering unrest that exploded in May 1857, Indian accounts of the uprising, British and foreign reactions to the event, and, of course, the roots of the Bengal Army's breakdown--and much, much more. Introductory essays very usefully summarize the themes developed in each volume. This series will be a valuable resource and starting point for further work on 1857, and essential for serious students of the antecedents, course, and consequences of the mutiny.However, some problems will make these volumes a bit less useful than they might have been. None of them provide an overview. (For that, consult some general account like Saul David's The Indian Mutiny, 2002). There are no maps (and many place-names have changed since 1857). Some contributors sprinkle their essays with untranslated Indian terms (and there is no glossary). Many lapse into dense academic jargon that makes their undeniable scholarship much less accessible. Finally, the East India Company had two other armies--the Madras and Bombay forces--that did not mutiny, and that helped suppress the revolt. Surely, why this happened should have been worth an essay or two? Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above. R. A. Callahan emeritus, University of Delaware