This book offers diverse and original perspectives on South Asia’s imperial military history. Unlike prevailing studies, the essays in the volume emphasize both the vital role of culture in framing imperial military practice and the multiple cultural effects of colonial military service and engagements.

List of Contributors. Acknowledgements. Introduction 1. The Indian Army: A Historiographical Reflection 2. Sepoys and Sebundies: The Role of Regular and Paramilitary Forces in the Construction of Colonialism in Bengal, c. 1765–c. 1820 3. Intelligence and Strategic Culture: Alternative Perspectives on the First British Invasion of Afghanistan 4. ‘At Ease, Soldier’: Social Life in the Cantonment 5. ‘The blind, brutal, British public’s bestial thirst for blood’: Archive, Memory and W. H. Russell’s (Re)Making of the Indian Mutiny 6. From the Black Mountain to Waziristan: Culture and Combat on the North-West Frontier 7. Deciphering the Maizar Military Tribunal, 1897: Civil–Military Tensions and Pukhtun Resistance on the North-West Frontier of British India 8. The Indian Army in Defeat: Malaya, 1941–2 9. Churchill, the Indian Army and The Second World War 10. War and Indian Military Institutions: The Emergence of the Indian Military Academy 11. ‘Home’ Front: Indian Soldiers and Civilians in Britain, 1939–1945. Index