**Short-listed for the Society for Army Historical Research UK's Templer Medal Best First Book Prize, 2020** In the Indian Army of the British Raj, the officer corps was “reserved for the governing race”— in other words, the British. Only in 1917, a mere thirty years before India won its freedom, did the Raj permit Indians into the Army’s officer corps, thus slowly beginning its Indianization. Yet it is often forgotten that this decision was the culmination of a hundred-year-long debate. Based on meticulous archival research in Britain and India, Indianization, the Officer Corps, and the Indian Army breaks new ground by offering readers the first detailed account of this generally forgotten debate. It traces the myriad schemes and counter-schemes the debate generated, the complex twists and turns it took, and how it engaged both British policymakers anxious to maintain control as well as nationalist Indian leaders agitating for greater self-government. This work also offers insights into the martial races concept, the 1857 uprising, and the impact of Anglo-Indian ideology upon the Indian Army. Clearly written and carefully argued, it is an original and defining contribution to military/war and society history, the history of colonial India and its army, the history of British empire, the history of racism, and civil-military relations.

Racializing the Soldier explores the impact of racial beliefs on the formation and development of modern armed forces and the ways in which these forces have been presented and historicized from a global perspective. With a wide geographical and temporal spread, the collection looks at the disparate ways that race has influenced military development. In particular, it explores the extent to which ideas of racial hierarchy and type have conditioned thinking about what kinds of soldiers should be used and in what roles. This volume offers a highly original military, social and cultural history, questioning the borders both of racialization and of the military itself. It considers the extent to which discourses of gender, nationality and religion have informed racialization, and probes the influence of expert studies of soldiers as indicators of national population types. By focusing mostly, but not exclusively, on colonial and post-colonial states, the book considers how racialized militaries both shaped and reflected conflict in the modern world, ultimately explaining how the history of this idea has often underpinned modern military planning and thinking. This book is based on a special issue of Patterns of Prejudice.

The classic reference work that provides annually updated information on the countries of the world.