The first systematic study to address the character and scope of American popular music in India during British rule.

Music of the Raj is a study of musical life in late eighteenth-century Anglo-Indian society, based on the unpublished correspondence of an extended network of families. The writers of these letters - amateurs with a passionate commitment to the art of music - provide a perceptive commentary on many of the major issues of the day: the stylistic change from Baroque to Galant, the replacement of the harpsichord with the pianoforte, the establishment of the musical canon, and the growing economic and cultural influence of women musicians. Among the topics discussed are the transport, tuning and maintenance of instruments, the relationship between amateur pupil and professional teacher, the conduct of the domestic musical soiree, the role of glee singing in courtship, and the musical education of children. An account is also given of the growth of an expatriate musical culture among the European inhabitants of early colonial Calcutta, and the musical tastes of major Anglo-Indianfigures such as Robert Clive, Warren Hastings, and Sir William Jones are assessed. English attitudes to Indian music is an important theme, especially as manifested in the fashion for the Hindostannie airs, transcriptions of Indian melodies in European musical language. The study concludes with an examination of the musical lives of wealthy nabobs back in England, where they immersed themselves in Indian musical culture, taking the Grand Tour, supporting opera at the Kings Theatre, and employing fashionable Italian teachers for their children.

As rich and varied as India itself, these accounts bring to the reader the Indian perspective on the British Raj. Included are the memories and experiences of more than fifty Indian men and women who worked under the British, made friends with them, and then fought to throw them out. They describe the role of apprentice under the sahibs, the complex racial barriers that divided the rulers from the ruled, the Western education which eventually encouraged rebellion, and the ways in which liberal British political arguments were turned against the Raj by nationalist campaigns to force the British to quit India.

Vyvyen Brendon's evocative, at times heart-tugging book, runs from the 18th century and the East India Company, through the Afghan wars, the Indian mutiny and the more settled era of the Queen Empress, and culminates in the conflict leading to Britain's hurried exit in 1947. Its subject is the young progeny of traders, soldiers, civil servants, missionaries, planters, engineers and what should be done with them. Until the coming of air travel these children often only saw their parents every few years. Then there were the children born of Anglo-Indian marriages and affairs. Sent back to Britain they were often reviled as 'darkies', 'a touch of the tar-brush'. And then there were the children educated in India. Brendon reveals appalling stories of abuse at the hands of servants. What frequently unites Brendon's wildly different subjects is their loneliness--drawing on letters, diaries, memoirs and interviews, she portrays children who had to discipline themselves to adapt (often ingeniously) to unfamiliar cultures, far away from family and forced to spend termtime in boarding schools and holidays with unfamiliar families.

An immersive portrait of the lives of the British in India, from the seventeenth century to Independence Who of the British went to India, and why? We know about Kipling and Forster, Orwell and Scott, but what of the youthful forestry official, the enterprising boxwallah, the fervid missionary? What motivated them to travel halfway around the globe, what lives did they lead when they got there, and what did they think about it all? Full of spirited, illuminating anecdotes drawn from long-forgotten memoirs, correspondence, and government documents, The British in India weaves a rich tapestry of the everyday experiences of the Britons who found themselves in “the jewel in the crown” of the British Empire. David Gilmour captures the substance and texture of their work, home, and social lives, and illustrates how these transformed across the several centuries of British presence and rule in the subcontinent, from the East India Company’s first trading station in 1615 to the twilight of the Raj and Partition and Independence in 1947. He takes us through remote hill stations, bustling coastal ports, opulent palaces, regimented cantonments, and dense jungles, revealing the country as seen through British eyes, and wittily reveling in all the particular concerns and contradictions that were a consequence of that limited perspective. The British in India is a breathtaking accomplishment, a vivid and balanced history written with brio, elegance, and erudition.

From the critically acclaimed author of "The Rise and Fall of the British Empire" comes an unapologetic revisionist history of British rule in India. James recounts the twists and turns of imperialism and independence with a wealth of new material. 8-page photo insert.