Peace, Poverty and Betrayal

How can we explain Britain's long rule in India beyond the clichés of 'imperial' versus 'nationalist' interpretations? In this new history, Roderick Matthews tells a more nuanced story of 'oblige and rule', the foundation of common purpose between colonisers and powerful Indians.

Peace, Poverty and Betrayal argues that this was more a state of being than a system: British policy was never clear or consistent; the East India Company went from a manifestly incompetent ruler to, arguably, the world's first liberal government; and among British and Indians alike there were both progressive and conservative attitudes to colonisation. Matthews skilfully illustrates that this very diversity and ambiguity of British-Indian relations also drove the social changes that led to the struggle for independence.

Skewering the simplistic binaries that often dominate the debate, Peace, Poverty and Betrayal is a fresh and elegant history of British India.

Mr. Matthews's discerning book isn't a revisionist defence of the Raj. It is, instead, a warning against the glib postcolonial assumption 'that because British rule is viewed as bad, therefore anything else would have been better.' - Tunku Varadarajan, The Wall Street Journal

This brave and intelligent book will satisfy neither empire loyalists nor today's rabid nationalists, which is all the more reason to applaud its author and relish the clarity of his analysis. - Literary Review

Matthews explores with great delicacy and intelligence... how Britain became itself, at home, more liberal and democratic, while, as an imperial power, becoming the opposite. - The Catholic Herald

Matthews demonstrates an encyclopaedic knowledge of British rule in India [and] frequently challenges conventional views of events and personalities who shaped British India. - Asian Review of Books

A radical reappraisal of British rule in India that challenges current thinking on colonialism in the subcontinent... This is a thoughtful, thought-provoking book with enough to keep the reader travelling through four centuries of our former relationship with India. - Journal of Asian Affairs