Despite the fact that it was events on the North-West Frontier which perennially awed and captivated Victorian audiences, British India's North-East Frontier saw at least as much military activity. Even the heroid 11-day defence of the isolated outpost of Kohima against overwhelming odds – fewer than 200 British-officered troops against perhaps 6,000 Nagas – failed to capture the public imagination. Today, after the passage of another century, Britain's numerous campaigns and conquests in Assam and the surrounding hills have faded even further into the mists of obscurity. This fascinating text by Ian Heath examines the peoples and places of the North-East Frontier.

The Gurkhas have fought on behalf of Britain and India for nearly two hundred years. As brave as they are resilient, resourceful and cunning, they have earned a reputation as devastating fighters, and their unswerving loyalty to the Crown has always inspired affection in the British people. There are also now up to 40,000 Gurkhas in the million-strong army of modern India. But who are the Gurkhas? How much of the myth that surrounds them is true? Award-winning historian Chris Bellamy uncovers the Gurkhas' origins in the Hills of Nepal, the extraordinary circumstances in which the British decided to recruit them and their rapid emergence as elite troops of the East India Company, the British Raj and the British Empire. Their special aptitude meant they were used as the first British 'Special Forces'. Bellamy looks at the wars the Gurkhas have fought this century, from the two world wars through the Falklands to Iraq and Afghanistan and examines their remarkable status now, when each year 11,000 hopefuls apply for just over 170 places in the British Army Gurkhas. Extraordinarily compelling, this book brings the history of the Gurkhas, and the battles they have fought, right up to date, and explores their future.

This bibliography is a record of British relations with Tibet in the period 1765 to 1947. As such it also involves British relations with Russia and China, and with the Himalayan states of Ladakh, Lahul and Spiti, Kumaon and Garhwal, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Assam, in so far as British policy towards these states was affected by her desire to establish relations with Tibet. It also covers a subject of some importance in contemporary diplomacy. It was the legacy of unresolved problems concerning Tibet and its borders, bequeathed to India by Britain in 1947, which led to border disputes and ultimately to war between India and China in 1962. These borders are still in dispute today. It also provides background information to Tibet's claims to independence, an issue of current importance. The work is divided into a number of sections and subsections, based on chronology, geography and events. The introductions to each of the sections provide a condensed and informative history of the period and place the books and article in their historical context. Most entries are also annotated. This work is therefore both a history and a bibliography of the subject, and provides a rapid entry into a complex area for scholars in the fields of international relations and military history as well as Asian history.

This volume is an important contribution to the new literature on frontier studies and the historiography of Northeast India.

This bibliography is a record of British relations with Tibet in the period from 1765 to 1947. It also provides background information to Tibet's claims to independence, an issue of current importance. The work is divided into a number of sections and subsections, based on chronology, geography and events. The introductions to each of the sections provide a condensed and informative history of the period and place the books and articles in their historical context. This work is both a history and a bibliography of the subject, and provides a rapid entry into a complex area for scholars in the fields of international relations and military history as well as Asian history.

China, the greatest empire the world had ever known, is weak and divided after a series of humiliating defeats in the Opium Wars, and the divine Empress' court harbours many who deeply resent the westerners who inflicted and now take advantage of these losses. Japan, on the other hand, has embraced the West with open arms. After centuries of isolation the Japanese now march forwards and accept technologies that, a few decades before, would have been regarded as witchcraft. Possessed of the East's most modern army, Japan now looks avariciously towards its neighbours. The next decade will decide whether the ancient empires of the East survive or are washed away, and every one of the Great Powers wants their slice.

In 1841, the Welsh sent their first missionary, Thomas Jones, to evangelise the tribal peoples of the Khasi Hills of north-east India. This book follows Jones from rural Wales to Cherrapunji, the wettest place on earth and now one of the most Christianised parts of India. As colonised colonisers, the Welsh were to have a profound impact on the culture and beliefs of the Khasis. The book also foregrounds broader political, scientific, racial and military ideologies that mobilised the Khasi Hills into an interconnected network of imperial control. Its themes are universal: crises of authority, the loneliness of geographical isolation, sexual scandal, greed and exploitation, personal and institutional dogma, individual and group morality. Written by a direct descendant of Thomas Jones, it makes a significant contribution in orienting the scholarship of imperialism to a much-neglected corner of India, and will appeal to students of the British imperial experience more broadly.