The Empire of the Raj India, Eastern Africa and the Middle East, 18581947 [Hardcover]

British India, as a result of history, geopolitics and its unique status within the Empire, controlled a chain of overseas agencies that stretched from southern Persia to eastern Africa. This book examines how, as the relative importance of British interests steadily eclipsed those of India throughout the region, Indian sub-imperial impulses clashed with the relentlessly advancing metropole. The nature of the struggle over political control between Britain and Indian reveals differences in perception and approach during a period of profound change in Anglo-Indian relations.The Empire of the Raj: the definition, delineation and dynamics of the Indian sphere PART I: THE INDIAN SPHERE BEFORE 1914 'A Glacis of Varying Breadth and Dimension': Persia and the Indian sphere, c .1850-1914 'A Conflict of Directions': the control of Zanzibar agency, c .1856-1883 'He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune': Aden and Somaliland, c .1869-1914 PART II: THE INDIAN SPHERE, 1914-1937 'A Colony for India?': the struggle for East Africa, c .1914-1924 'Basrah is as Near Delhi as Rangoon': realigning the Middle East, 1914-1921 'When One Comes to Details, Difficulties Bristle': the Aden transfer, 1914-1937 PART III: POSTSCRIPT: THE END OF THE INDIAN SPHERE 'A Sort of Gilded Parochialism': the political control of the Persian Gulf, 1928-1948 Bibliography

'Robert Blyth's study of the administrative and diplomatic struggles between the Indian and British imperial governments illuminates the dynamics of sub-imperial expansion beyond the Raj...' - A. J. Stockwell, JRAS

ROBERT J. BLYTH is Curator of Imperial and Maritime History at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.