Roger Bell (1905-1959) was a civil servant in British India during the most tumultuous period in its history, and was directly involved in not only the fascinating workings of the administration, but also its eventual transfer of power upon Indian Independence in 1947. His nearly two decades in Orissa and Madras Provinces saw the rise of Gandhi, the “flap” caused by World War II, corruption, riots, panther attacks, and Englishmen whose eccentricities were only exceeded by those of the local Rajas and Maharajas. Bell’s handwritten memoirs lay forgotten for decades in a trunk in his family home in Tasmania until rediscovered by his daughter, Alexandra. They are finally published here, 56 years after his death (and 70 years after his Orissa District Gazetteer), providing a fascinating insight into this pivotal period of India’s history. Anybody with an interest in this time, the history of the British Empire, or simply good old-fashioned adventure, will certainly enjoy reading this eloquent and engaging first-hand account.

" Roger Bell (1905-1959) was a civil servant in British India during the most tumultuous period in its history, and was directly involved in not only the fascinating workings of the administration, but also its eventual transfer of power upon Indian Independence in 1947. His nearly two decades in Orissa and Madras Provinces saw the rise of Ghandi, the "flap" caused by World War II, corruption, riots, panther attacks, and Englishmen whose eccentricities were only exceeded by those of the local Rajas and Maharajas. Bell's handwritten memoirs lay forgotten for decades in a trunk in his family home in Tasmania until rediscovered by his daughter, Alexandra. They are finally published here, 56 years after his death (and 70 years after his Orissa District Gazetteer), providing a fascinating insight into this pivotal period of India's history. Anybody with an interest in this time, the history of the British Empire, or simply good old-fashioned adventure, will certainly enjoy reading this eloquent and engaging first-hand account. "

When Indian University--now Bacone College--opened its doors in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in 1880, it was a small Baptist institution designed to train young Native Americans to be teachers and Christian missionaries among their own people and to act as agents of cultural assimilation. From 1927 to 1957, however, Bacone College changed course and pursued a new strategy of emphasizing the Indian identities of its students and projecting often-romanticized images of Indianness to the non-Indian public in its fund-raising campaigns. Money was funneled back into the school as administrators hired Native American faculty who in turn created innovative curricular programs in music and the arts that encouraged their students to explore and develop their Native identities. Through their frequent use of humor and inventive wordplay to reference Indianness--"Indian play"--students articulated the (often contradictory) implications of being educated Indians in mid-twentieth-century America. In this supportive and creative culture, Bacone became an "Indian school," rather than just another "school for Indians." In examining how and why this transformation occurred, Lisa K. Neuman situates the students' Indian play within larger theoretical frameworks of cultural creativity, ideologies of authenticity, and counterhegemonic practices that are central to the fields of Native American and indigenous studies today.

A must read for anyone with an interest in the far Southwest or Native American history.

Foreword by Admiral Sir John Woodward. When published in hardcover in 1997, this book was praised for providing an engrossing education not only in naval strategy and tactics but in Victorian social attitudes and the influence of character on history. In juxtaposing an operational with a cultural theme, the author comes closer than any historian yet to explaining what was behind the often described operations of this famous 1916 battle at Jutland. Although the British fleet was victorious over the Germans, the cost in ships and men was high, and debates have raged within British naval circles ever since about why the Royal Navy was unable to take advantage of the situation. In this book Andrew Gordon focuses on what he calls a fault-line between two incompatible styles of tactical leadership within the Royal Navy and different understandings of the rules of the games.