April 2021: The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire

At the height of its power, the British Empire stretched to the far corners of the earth and in the 19th century, it became popular to apply the phrase “the empire on which the sun never sets”. Although this phrase had been around in a slightly different format since the days of Herodotus, the British Empire version is credited to Scottish author, John Wilson, writing as Christopher North in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1829. This was also a time when maps showed the Empire in red and pink to highlight the British imperial power that spanned the globe.

The Reading Through Time challenge in April is to read a book that is set in one of the many countries of the British Empire. The Empire was composed of dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories so your reading options are wide open. The time period is fairly optional, the British Empire is usually thought to have been from the late 16th century through to the mid-20th, when both world wars and many countries desire for independance weakened the empire. (1580s to 1950)

Some of the larger countries that are or were part of the British Empire include:

Canada
The 13 Colonies of America
India
Australia
New Zealand
Palestine
Scotland
Ireland
Kenya
Uganda
South Africa
Zimbabwe

For the complete list please check here: https://schoolshistory.org.uk/topics/british-empire/questions-about-the-british-...

I am planning on reading Massacre at Cawnpore by V.A. Stuart, set in India and Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jeffries set in Sri Lanka (Ceylon as it was then called).

Thanks for setting this up! I have so many books to choose from for this, spoiled for choice again and again. I think it will be a last-minute decision...

mmmmm I could reread Far Pavillions, one of my fav books in this theme, But I really need something new, perhaps ina a completely different direction in place. Weill be watching here for some ideas

I have a nineteenth century travel narrative by an Englishwoman abroad but not within the Empire. I also have a cricket themed Sri Lankan novel on my To Read shelf but iirc it's contemporary. Or maybe I should take a break from my literary travels and set foot back home with one of my three unread Margery Sharp novels or some mid-twentieth century girls' own adventures. I'll see what I still have unread when April comes around.

ETA: I do have State of Emergency about the Malayan Emergency.

I have several from which to choose: The Narrow Road to the Deep North (about the Burma railroad in WWII), The Clear Light of Day (set in India) and Tales for an Unknown City, which are Canadian folktales. I probably have quite a few more that just aren't tagged.

Sorry for this dumb question, but I'm a little confused about timeframe. Does the book need to be set in or cover the 19th century? Or only about or set during years that the particular country was part of the British Empire? Or is it open to any timeframe for any of these countries?

>1 DeltaQueen50: You might want to correct the spelling of “its.” For credibility reasons.

>7 kac522: I didn't specify a time period, so I would say your read should fall between the late 16th century when Britain was first establishing the Empire through to the first half of the 20th century after which many countries requested their independence, and the world wars weakened Britian.

>8 booksaplenty1949: Done. :)

>9 DeltaQueen50: Got it--thanks!

Pax Brittanica had been sitting on my shelves for almost a decade. Sounds like the perfect time for it.

I'll be reading Murder in Old Bombay: A Mystery by Nev March.

I'll definitely be reading something on India, of which I've got oodles – and that includes The Essential Tagore (which, clocking in at well over 800 pages, also meets the Big Fat Book Challenge). I'm not sure how really satisfying a read that kind of an anthology will be, considering that it includes several short excerpts from novels where a single complete novel might be more interesting; but since I've never read anything at all by Tagore, I've got to start somewhere. It's a Harvard/Belknap edition, so at least it should be pretty authoritative.

ETA: Dang it, The Bombay Prince won't be out until June 1 (according to Amazon).

I just came across a book on my shelves by Wilbur Smith entitled Assegai, which takes place in the early 1900s in British East Africa. Seems just right for this topic.

The Outlander series would fit this month's read.

>9 DeltaQueen50: : : Judy, would you mind adding the time setting info into your opening post, so everything is together. My old eyes are having trouble scrolling through threads looking for the pertinent parts. I know this thread is short so far, but...

Love this topic! Tagmashing now to find my reads.

>16 countrylife: Done, I specified the years between 1580 to 1950.

I'll read death in kashmir. WEll, bummer. 1953.

>18 majkia:, >17 DeltaQueen50: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the timeframe applies to the events in the book, not necessarily the publication date. If the story takes place prior to 1950, then I think it would qualify, correct?

>19 kac522: Read a summary that says the action takes place a year before Indian independence so Death in Kashmir will work!

12> I just bought Murder in Old Bombay a few days ago myself. I don't usually browse the B&N mystery section, but for some reason I did and I came across it. I especially got hold of it when I saw the rear-dustjacket publicity blurb from Sujata Massey (whose Bombay Prince won't be out until June).

>19 kac522: & >20 majkia: The time frame isn't set in stone. If the book deals with or is set during the time of Britain controlling the country you are reading about, then it certainly fits.

>1 DeltaQueen50: For the complete list please check here: https://schoolshistory.org.uk/topics/british-empire/questions-about-the-british-....

Just a note that if anyone is wanting to use any of these countries for a tagmash, they have Sierra Leone spelled wrong on this site!

It looks like I'll be doing fiction for this one. And in Canada. I haven't read nearly as much Canadian stuff last year, nor at the start of this year for my liking.

Two I'm choosing between:
The Horseman's Graves / Jacquiline Baker
The Devil's Making / Sean Haldane

>24 LibraryCin: Also Solomon Islands spelled wrong.

I started reading Narrow Road to the Far North by Richard Flanagan thinking I would finish sometime around April 1. But I finished 4 days early, but still going to count it here. This was only a 2.5/5 read even though it was a Booker Prize Winner. It was just long and boring! It was historical fiction about the building of Burma Railway. 1/3 of the story was a very boring conversation between the main character and his uncle's wife, with whom he was having an affair. Too impressionistic for my taste. 467 pages

P.S. I know the touchstone is incorrect, but when I try to select another one, the box closes!

Thinking about a reread of Midnights Children, a book written before Rushdie was so controverial. one hundred and one children were born during the hour of the disastrous Partition of India and Pakistan, and focuses on the story of one of them. I remeber it blew me away, having little knowledge of that history. Might be an interesting reread after 35 years.

I'm currently about halfway through Himalaya: A Human History by Ed Douglas. It's not entirely about the British empire, but there's a good deal of interaction between the Himalayan kingdoms, especially Nepal, and the British in India.

Really great book, just published January 5 of this year, but it's a heavy read, in large part because of a lot of unfamiliar names, both personal and place-names. It does have good maps, but these aren't perfect. The absence of a biographical/place-name glossary is made up for by the very thorough index, so I can look up a name that I've forgotten (and that happens rather frequently).

I see November is going to be "Reader's Choice." I may use that as an opportunity to re-read Himalaya, because this book has a lot of riches that can be missed on a first reading when you're trying to keep track of everyone and everywhere.

Incidentally, the author observes, as I recall, that "Himalaya" is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, as in Himalaya. This makes sense if the last two syllables contain short vowels, because Sanskrit (and I assume also Hindi and the other modern Indo-European languages of the subcontinent) follows the same rule of accentuation as Latin — on three-and-more-syllable words, accent the penult if it's long (long vowel or followed by double consonant), otherwise accent the antepenult.

I've picked up The Secret River by Kate Greenville for this month's prompt. It's about the settling of Australia as a penal colony and the appropriation of aboriginal land.

Since Reading Globally has childhood has a theme this quarter, I decided to read some books written for children from the empire' discovered a great site to choose from

https://worldkidlit.wordpress.com/

The Devil's Making / Sean Haldane
3 stars

Chad Hobbes went to law school in England, but never wrote the bar exam. In 1868, he has come to British Columbia, a British colony, but not yet part of Canada (which was just recently formed in the east), but without having written the bar, he cannot practice as a lawyer, so he gets a job as a constable in Victoria. When an American “alienist” (psychiatrist - I had to look it up!) is found murdered in a very gruesome way, everyone assumes it’s the First Nations people who are closeby who killed him. One is arrested and it is assumed he will soon hang for it. Hobbes, though, doesn’t think he (nor any of the other natives) did it, and he sets out to find who really did it. In the meantime, Hobbes finds himself attracted to the sister of the man who was arrested.

Be warned: this was quite gruesome in the details. Also, there was a lot of investigation into sexual things. There is definite racism here, primarily against native people. Overall, I’m rating this ok. There were parts that just didn’t interest me, so I kind of tuned out, but other parts were fine and I followed without an issue. I’m thinking maybe the writing style? The odd thing is that I love historical fiction, I also like mysteries (though some types more than others), but oddly, more often than not, historical mysteries don’t interest me as much. I have no idea why.

I did like the Canadian background in this, though. I’ve been to Victoria a couple of times, so I could picture some of the places mentioned. There was an odd (I thought) twist and I felt like the end was a bit too much all tied up – except for one thing. That one thing wasn’t a happy one (and it was apparently a real event). The brief afterword also explained that many of the people were real people.

I have completed the first book I am planning to read for this theme. Massacre at Cawnpore by V. A. Stuart reads more like a military history than a novel as the author did a lot of research and gives a very detailed account of the British garrison under attack. It is quite a brutal and bloody account but apparently very accurate.

I just finished the very recently published America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present by John Ghazvinian. I'm not going to include it in the group Wiki because, as is obvious from the title, it's primarily about relations between the United States and Iran; but I mention it here because it does include a substantial amount of material on the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) – today known as British Petroleum (BP) – which in its day in competition with Tsarist Russian exercised near-colonial power in Persia/Iran. A definite 5***** read.

While I'm familiar with Iranian history from Mossaddegh to the present, the pre-1953 years of very friendly US-Persia/Iran relations were new to me. My only quarrel with the author is that he tries to be equally critical of both the U.S. and Iran, while as an anti-interventionist my own criticism is directed far more toward the U.S. The book contains a very useful history of Allen Dulles, Kermit Roosevelt, and the CIA (in cahoots with Mother England) in their regime-change plotting against Mossaddegh, material I was already familiar with but that's here summarized in one convenient location.

ETA: Also includes very substantial endnoting to make this a valuable reference resource.

The Secret River by Kate Grenville

This novel, the first in a trilogy, tells part of the tale of Australia's colonization by the British, so it's both uniquely Australian but universal in many ways. Change a few details, and the story of the clash of colonizers with indigenous inhabitants could take place in many parts of the world. Grenville doesn't shy away from brutality, and it can be a tough read. What really impressed me was the complexity of her main character - an English convict sent to Sydney with his family in lieu of hanging, who sees this opportunity as the start of a new life. And it is, but at what - and whose - expense? The reader starts with a lot of sympathy for William Thornhill, and that sympathy remains but is eventually tempered by the reality of what he does to build a good life for himself, his wife, and his children. Grenville handles his characterization and evolution deftly, creating neither a hero nor a total villain.

4 stars

I finished My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin, which was published in 1901. I had very mixed feelings about this book. The narrator is a 16 year old girl living in the 1890s Australian bush.

Franklin was 16 when she wrote this, so quite an accomplishment. There are brilliant descriptions of the bush and the hard life on the farms: the floods, the droughts, the heat, the dust. The narration and dialogue give a good feel for Australian slang and expressions. The heroine expresses unorthodox (for the time) views of a woman's place in society and marriage. However, there is blatant racist references, a very unlikeable heroine and rather a tedious story. I think overall the book is an important work by a young Australian woman writer in the 1890s, but only an average work of literature.

I just finished Assegai by Wilbur Smith. The story takes place in British East Africa prior to WWI and very briefly, during and after the war. An adventure and love story. I enjoyed learning about the landscape, flora and fauna of Africa, the Masai and their culture. The beginnings of flight by plane and dirigible feature here too. Nairobi was a small town. Hunting safaris were popular during this time and the slaughter of great numbers of animals of all kinds the norm, which was hard to read. Not to mention the events in the first part of the story. All told, though, it was pretty good.

Next up is Murder in Old Bombay.

I have completed my read of The Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jeffries. Set in Ceylon during the 1920s the author paints a vivid picture of the pampered lives of the British. Independence was still a good number of years away, but there were rumblings.

I just finished Himalaya: A Human History by Ed Douglas, 4****. It runs from early history through the 21st century, but much of it is centered on the eras of the British East India Company and the subsequent Imperial Raj. While Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan were never a formal part of the Raj (nor was Sikkim, though Sikkim has since been absorbed into post-colonial India), there were major interactions between these mountain kingdoms and India, both pre-British and during the British era; and some lowland border areas such as Darjeeling (as its name indicates, a major center of tea production) were actually a part of the Raj.

There's also substantial discussion of the relations between the Himalayan regions and China, including some discussion of colonial/imperialist Britain's opium wars as well as present-day Sino-Tibetan relations and the effects on both Nepal and India.

An excellent book, and one that's so rich and complex as to require a reread, which I may give it as part of our November "Reader's Choice." The reason I've given it four rather than five stars is because of the absence of any footnotes or endnotes. There's an extensive bibliography, but it's unannotated and thus of minimal value. There are many issues where annotated authorities would be helpful, because you won't get such support from the laundry-list bibliography. I'd especially like to have had supporting references to the CIA's activities in Tibet.

ETA: A recent publication, January 5 of this year, and still on retail shelves in hardcover.

I just finished Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies 5*****, the first volume in The Ibis Trilogy. Set in 1838 (the year is once referenced in the text and had earlier been referenced as thirty-three years after the death of Lord Cornwallis), the Ibis is a former slave ship which (because of its older construction with slower speed) was unable to outrace American and British warships intercepting slave traders off West Africa; and it's now been converted to a merchant shipper in the Calcutta area in the period immediately preceding the first Opium War.

The novel has an ensemble cast, and the ship finally winds up transporting "contract" laborers from inland areas in the Bengal area to Mauritius to labor in the poppy fields. Be aware that some of the language used, including the "n-word," may be offensive to some readers.

Shortlisted for the Man-Booker

I'm about to start Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game, which I've had around in TBR for a while now. I've also got a copy of Kim on on-line order in the Norton Critical Edition. I was really surprised to see that I don't have a copy of it around the house, far as I can tell. It's not my absolutely favorite novel (Jane Eyre obviously is, and The Master and Margarita is a close second), but looking back over the years, it's definitely one of the books that I've most reread. It'll be nice to get to the Norton critical commentary as well.

I think I may also get started pretty soon on George Orwell's Burmese Days; and I've also got an annotated edition of Gandhi's autobiography somewhere around the house.

With all that I've got on India, I'll be coming back to this topic in November for "Reader's Choice." Thanks for the great topic, DQ! It's letting me get to a good bit of TBRs.

>42 CurrerBell: Glad you've enjoyed it! I read and loved Sea of Poppies a number of years ago. I also liked the next book in the trilogy, River of Smoke. I haven't gotten around to the third book Flood of Fire yet.

>43 DeltaQueen50: I've definitely got Flood of Fire right at my fintertips (right here in my living room, in fact), but I'm not sure whether I've got River of Smoke. I hate to buy another copy if I've already got one but just neglected to add it to my LT catalog. I've got a lot of India material that I'll never get to before the end of this month, though, so I can just wait and see if I come up with River of Smoke doing some household clean-up between now and "Reader's Choice". I do want to read the trilogy in order.

Incidentally, I just picked up Gun Island on a B&N brick-and-mortar browse a couple days ago. Got it because it was still in a nice hardcover edition (and I bought it at B&N Wilmington Delaware store, where there's no sales tax so I can always have fun cheating Pennsylvania out of its 6%). Looks interesting, something about Bengali folklore combined with global warming ecology – though it's a contemporary setting, I think, and doesn't tie in with this month's topic.

Still, this month's topic has found me a new author in Amitav Ghosh.

>44 CurrerBell: have read several of his books but my favorite was a history/travel book called In An Ancient Land Among other things I learned about in this amazing book was the discovery of the Cairo Genizah. I consider myself knowledgable about my religion, its culture and traditions, but I had never heard of this custom before, that Jewish Temples had a place where they stored old books and papers that had Gods name on it. The one in Cairo lead to a huge avalance of information about the Jews of that time period and life in Egypt in general.

This article is rather long but if you are interested, you will see how imporant it was and still is a valuable tool for writers and resarchers of the time and place. It has sent me to many other references where i learned even more. All because this author was trying to answer a questions. Cairo Genizah

I have finished Old Filth which is the life story of a Raj orphan, sent home from Malaya as a toddler and handed round from one stranger to the next. Some very nasty aunts who lived the high life on the money intended for his upkeep. And one hilarious moment in Gloucester when he volunteers for his father's regiment had me laughing out loud. This is a wonderful read.

>47 MissWatson: - I loved Old Filth, too. The other two in the trilogy are almost as good...

I read State of Emergency : a novel, by Jeremy Tiang, which is mostly set in Singapore and Malaysia before, during, and after independence. It focusses on the Singaporean and Malayan Chinese communities' political relationships with the state, especially repression against anyone left of centre, told through the actions of one woman and the reactions rippling outwards through her extended family. It's surprisingly honest, and I note that the author lives in the US not Singapore. Before I read this I'd only encountered Tiang as a translator, and a good one, but he's a skilled storyteller too. An extremely impressive first novel. 4.5*

>47 MissWatson: Loved it too, and did a reread of all three this summer.
I highly recommend the other two. (I did wonder after reading through them what would happen if I read them chronolgically instead of when published. Might be intriguing.)

>47 MissWatson:. >50 cindydavid4: I have Old Filth on the shelf--do you think it would fit for the June theme "Rewriting the Past"?

>51 kac522: I'm not sure. Sir Edward is very much old school, stiff upper lip and all that. A "legend" among lawyers who nevertheless call him a fossil.

My husband was out of town for a good bit of this month, so I had a good month of RTT reads, audiobooks while getting projects done. Win-win for me!

Barkskins, Annie Proulx, 17th-18th c Canada
Calico Captive, Elizabeth George Speare, 1754 Colonial America
Captain Blood, Rafael Sabatini, 17th c Barbados, Jamaica
The Four Feathers, A.E.W. Mason, 1880s Sudan
Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes, 18th c Colonial America
Only Killers and Thieves, Paul Howarth 19th c Crown-Land Australia
A Place Called Freedom, Ken Follett, 18th c Scotland & Virginia
The Strangler Vine, M.J. Carter, 1830s Colonial India
Tread Upon the Lion, Gilbert Morris, 18th c, Colonial america
The Widows of Malabar Hill, Sujata Massey, 1916, 1921 Colonial India

>52 MissWatson: , >51 kac522: if you were looking at just his personal history yes, but hes not really rewritting the past; nothing changes in his surroundings.

Thinking about it Claire North has a book that might work here; The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August about a group of people that keep being born again, while keeping the memories of their past lives. They werent supposed to rewrite the past, but it happens anyway. Cool read.

>52 MissWatson:, >54 cindydavid4: Thanks for your help. I think I'm going to skip June's challenge because I'm not understanding the concept. I wish there was a list of recommended books/authors in the first message to give a better idea of the type of book (especially historical fiction) that fits the topic.

>55 kac522: As I understand it, something like The silence of the girls would fit, as it is written from the viewpoint of Briseis and her companions.

>56 MissWatson: Thanks for that suggestion! I may not choose that particular book, but it gives me an idea of what to look for. Do you think I, Claudius would fit, or is that not "re-writing" enough? I'm struggling with when it is "re-writing", versus when it is just historical from a particular viewpoint.

>57 kac522: In what way do you think I, Claudius altered views of that history? That would answer your own question about whether it actually re-wrote understandings of history or only retold history as it was already understood. :-)

>58 spiralsheep: Well, I don't know because I haven't read it yet (shrugs). 🤷‍♀️ Plus I don't know that much about the era, so it would all be new to me anyway...so it would be hard for me to tell if it's a traditional or altered view. I'm probably making this a lot more difficult than it is....

Have you heard the term revisionist history? When an author takes history and turns it on its ear? What would happen if the south won the civil war? Did Richard 111 kill his nephews? Guy Gabriel Kay does lots of this, just changing names and significant moments.

And yeah you might be over thinking this. no worries . Post where ever you are comfortable, and if Junes theme doesnt strike your fancy, try Mays which looks at books written about the press. or other ones coming up!

>60 cindydavid4: Oh, I've got a great one for May, so no worries there. I'm going to read Letter from England by Mollie Panter-Downes, which is a collection of essays written for the New Yorker during WWII (specifically 1939-1940).

>57 kac522: Personally, I think I, Claudius would fit perfectly. Apparently Claudius didn't have that great a reputation with ancient historians. Robert Graves's first-person narrative, which makes the novel appear autobiographical, vastly improves Claudius's portrayal.

>62 CurrerBell: Oooh, I've been meaning to read it for ages, so I'm going to go with your interpretation. Thanks! Problem solved!

After reading Assegai for this great theme, and waiting for my interlibrary loan of Murder in Old Bombay to arrive, I was desperately searching my shelves for another book for the theme when there was Kim, patiently waiting to be read.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and since the copy I own includes some of Kiplings other works, I’ve got more enjoyable reading to look forward to. I will still be reading Murder in Old Bombay but it will be posted late as I will be starting it today. Love the theme.

The June theme of "rewriting the past" is really loosey goosey. It can be about new discoveries or ways of looking at things have changed our ideas about the history of a place or a people. It can also be a book about what could have happened if an event, such as a war had gone the other way.

After World War One, India was still a part of the British Empire although there were signs of change. As part of his remit as a Commander for Scotland Yard, Joe Sandilands had the difficult assignment of representing British interests while observing the problems with the handover of power in one of the states that made up India. There were deaths a plenty in The Palace Tiger, an interesting and complicated mystery.

>66 Familyhistorian: Fourth in a series? Are the preceding three about India? If not, would I have to read the preceding three to understand backstory?

>67 CurrerBell: All of the books in the series that I've read so far have been set in India. It starts with The Last Kashmiri Rose. The stories could be read individually, at least to the point that I've read in the series.

>68 Familyhistorian: Thanks!!

Finished, just after midnight of May 1, The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk. Gave it 4**** rather than 5***** because, although it's got a good bibliography, its lack of endnote annotation fails to tie sources to the text. Excellent maps and some nice illustrations.

This tied in well with Himalaya: A Human History, which I also read this month. Himalaya tends to be more "academic" while The Great Game tends to be more focused on the "excitement" factor of individuals and their achievements (and The Great Game generally tends to focus a bit westward of the Himalayas, more into the Pamir region when mountains are involved). Both of these books, but especially The Great Game, should tie in well with Sovietistan, which I'm going to be reading for the June theme.

One caution. The Great Game is currently on retail shelves at B&N in paperback, and that's the edition I bought. I wish I'd bought a hard cover on Abe, though, because one of the most important maps (of central Asia) carries over on two facing pages. The paperback edition hides some of the important map features in the gutter between the two facing pages. The hardcover, I suspect, would flatten out better for map viewing.

The Great Game does tend to be a bit more Anglophile (or at least Anglocentric) than I would have liked, but that may just be because of the greater availability of archival records from England than from Russia.