“Statemaking and Territory in South Asia: Lessons from the Anglo–Gorkha War (1814–1816)” seeks to understand how European colonization transformed the organization of territory in South Asia through an examination of the territorial disputes that underlay the Anglo–Gorkha War of 1814–1816 and subsequent efforts of the colonial state to reorder its territories. The volume argues that these disputes arose out of older tribute, taxation and property relationships that left their territories perpetually intermixed and with ill-defined boundaries. It also seeks to describe the long-drawn-out process of territorial reordering undertaken by the British in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that set the stage for the creation of a clearly defined geographical template for the modern state in South Asia.

WHEN BRITON FOUGHT GURKHA No-one who has an interest in British military history is ignorant of the role of the Gurkhas. Their loyalty and courage is as legendary as the affection with which they are regarded by the British military and civilians alike. It was not always so. At the beginning of the 19th century, as the British empire inexorably expanded its inflfl uence to embrace the Indian Sub-Continent, the Nepalese empire itself covered huge areas of Northern India - stretching at times from the borders of the Sikh kingdom in the west to the foothills of the Himalayas where they meet the Bay of Bengal. When these two empires clashed, the British certainly experienced an unpleasant surprise. For they confronted warriors of astonishing bravery, gallantry and ferocity, with no mean grasp of tactics. So began a hard-fought, touch-and-go war between enemies who would one day be inseparable friends. This is the story of that war!

Where lived experience of surroundings is shifting, visceral, and immersive, interpretation of social spaces tends to be static and remote. "Space" and "place" are also often analyzed without grappling much (if at all) with the social, political, and historical roots of spatial practice. This volume embarks upon the novel strategy of focusing on movement as a way of understanding social spaces, which offers a means to get beyond biases inherent in the social science of space. Ethnographic studies of social life in settings as varied as nomadic Mongolia and island Melanesia, as distinct as contemporary Tokyo and war-torn Palestine, challenge Western assumptions about the universality of "space" and allow concrete understanding of how life plays out over different socio-cultural topographies. In a world that is becoming increasingly "bounded" in many ways - despite enormous changes wrought by technological, ideological, and other social developments - Boundless Worlds urges a scholarly turn, away from the purely global, toward the human dimension of social lives lived in conditions of conflict, upheaval, remapping, and improvisation through movement.

Kapiteloverskrifter: The Gurkhas; The quarrel with the british; The matter of Himalayan trade; The Bengal army; Preparing for war; Fiasco in Garhwal; Stagnation in Sirmur; The collapse of the eastern offensives; The triumph of Ochterlony; The conquest of Kumaun; Interlude; The final campaign.

A comprehensive history of the Gurkhas, which remains to this day a unique and much-loved regiment, and which played a crucial role in the British Empire.