Tarak Barkawi

Indian and British Armies in World War II

Soldiers of Empire

How are soldiers made? Why do they fight? Re-imagining the study of armed forces and society, Barkawi examines the imperial and multinational armies that fought in Asia in the Second World War, especially the British Indian army in the Burma campaign. Going beyond conventional narratives, Barkawi studies soldiers in transnational context, from recruitment and training to combat and memory. Drawing on history, sociology and anthropology, the book critiques the 'Western way of war' from a postcolonial perspective. Barkawi reconceives soldiers as cosmopolitan, their battles irreducible to the national histories that monopolise them. This book will appeal to those interested in the Second World War, armed forces and the British Empire, and students and scholars of military sociology and history, South Asian studies and international relations.

George Lawson

This special issue is animated by the necessary entanglement of theory and history, the cortical relationship between theory and practice, and the transboundary relations that help to constitute systems of thought and practice.

International Origins of Social and Political Theory

Examining the interconnections between globalization and war, Barkawi (Centre of International Studies, U. of Cambridge, UK) first analyzes how war interconnects and reshapes places and how developments in the nature and utility of military force shape transregional and worldwide contexts, utilizing the relations among India, the British empire, and the Indian Army is illustrative material. He then examines cultural dimensions of war and globalization such as "geographic imaginaries" of a modern and advance West and a barbarous Orient. The themes developed in these chapters are then applied to the "War on Terror."

Tarak Barkawi

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