Tim Harper

The end of Europe's empires has so often been seen as a story of high politics and warfare. In Tim Harper's remarkable new book the narrative is very different - it shows how empires were fundamentally undermined from underneath. Using the new technology of cheap printing presses, global travel and the widespread use of French and English, young radicals from across Asia were able to communicate in ways simply not available before. These clandestine networks stretched to the heart of the imperial metropolises: to London, to Paris, but also increasingly to Moscow. They created a secret global network which was for decades engaged in bitter fighting with imperial police forces. They gathered in the great hubs of empire - Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore, Penang, Batavia, Hanoi, Shanghai and Hong Kong - and plotted with ceaseless ingenuity, both through persuasion and terrorism, the end of the colonial regimes. Many were caught and killed or imprisoned, but others would go on to rule their newly independent countries. Drawing on an amazing array of exotic sources, Harper's book turns upside down our understanding of 20th-century empire. The reader enters an extraordinary world of stowaways, false identities, secret codes, cheap firearms, posters and conspiracies as young Asians made their own plans for their future.

Global Revolutionaries and the Overthrow of Europe's Empires in the East

Underground Asia

Christopher Bayly

The Second World War ended officially in 1945, yet for Asia the conflict was far from over. Britain's Asian Empire was engulfed in a new series of diverse, intense and bloody wars, which raged throughout Indonesia, India, Burma, Malaya and Vietnam as an unstoppable wave of nationalism swept the old colonial ways aside. This is the story of the struggles of military commanders and revolutionary leaders, but also of ordinary people caught up in the insurgency, rioting and turmoil that heralded the birth of a new Asia.

The End of Britain's Asian Empire

Forgotten Wars

Christopher Alan Bayly

An account of the war that tore Asia apart between 1941 and 1945. The book brings to life the stories of the ordinary men and women - soldiers and civilians, Asians, Britons and Americans - who experienced some of the most tragic events of the 20th century.

Britain's Asian Empire and the War with Japan

Forgotten Armies

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2021 AN ECONOMIST AND HISTORY TODAY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 'Compelling and highly original ... The Asia that we see today is the product of the 'underground' which Harper describes with skill and empathy in this monumental work' Rana Mitter, Literary Review The story of the hidden struggle waged by secret networks around the world to destroy European imperialism The end of Europe's empires has so often been seen as a story of high politics and warfare. In Tim Harper's remarkable new book the narrative is very different: it shows how empires were fundamentally undermined from below. Using the new technology of cheap printing presses, global travel and the widespread use of French and English, young radicals from across Asia were able to communicate in ways simply not available before. These clandestine networks stretched to the heart of the imperial metropolises: to London, to Paris, to the Americas, but also increasingly to Moscow. They created a secret global network which was for decades engaged in bitter fighting with imperial police forces. They gathered in the great hubs of Asia - Calcutta, Singapore, Batavia, Hanoi, Tokyo, Shanghai, Canton and Hong Kong - and plotted with ceaseless ingenuity, both through persuasion and terrorism, the end of the colonial regimes. Many were caught and killed or imprisoned, but others would go on to rule their newly independent countries. Drawing on an amazing array of new sources, Underground Asia turns upside-down our understanding of twentieth-century empire. The reader enters an extraordinary world of stowaways, false identities, secret codes, cheap firearms, assassinations and conspiracies, as young Asians made their own plans for their future. 'Magnificent - it reads like a thriller and was difficult to put down' Peter Frankopan, History Today

Global Revolutionaries and the Assault on Empire

David Coulby

There has always been considerable debate about the best solutions to deal with disruptive behaviour in schools. On the one hand is the strategy of segregating disruptive pupils while on the other is a commitment to keeping such pupils in the ordinary school. This book advocates the latter philosophy and examines the best ways of coping with the problem. These concern both teacher skills and school organisational flexibility. In addition, the authors propose the provision of a support team whereby local authorities can help schools, teachers and children with problems of disruption without setting up 'sin-bins'. Change is thus shown to be possible at three levels – teachers, headteachers and local authorities. Detailed illustrative case material is presented throughout the book.

Policy, Practice and Evaluation in Urban Schools

Preventing Classroom Disruption

Sunil Amrith

This book sheds light on the history of political and religious globalisation in modern Asia, transcending both national and imperial boundaries, while expanding the range of methodologies and sources brought to bear on studying Asia's modernity. It illuminates how ideas travelled across Asia, and how they changed in the process.

Ideas, Networks and Mobility

Sites of Asian Interaction

A major historian tells the dramatic and untold story of the shadowy networks of revolutionaries across Asia who laid the foundations in the early twentieth century for the end of European imperialism on their continent. This is the epic tale of how modern Asia emerged out of conflict between imperial powers and a global network of revolutionaries in the turbulent early decades of the twentieth century. In 1900, European empires had not yet reached their territorial zenith. But a new generation of Asian radicals had already planted the seeds of their destruction. They gained new energy and recruits after the First World War and especially the Bolshevik Revolution, which sparked utopian visions of a free and communist world order led by the peoples of Asia. Aided by the new technologies of cheap printing presses and international travel, they built clandestine webs of resistance from imperial capitals to the front lines of insurgency that stretched from Calcutta and Bombay to Batavia, Hanoi, and Shanghai. Tim Harper takes us into the heart of this shadowy world by following the interconnected lives of the most remarkable of these Marxists, anarchists, and nationalists, including the Bengali radical M. N. Roy, the iconic Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, and the enigmatic Indonesian communist Tan Malaka. He recreates the extraordinary milieu of stowaways, false identities, secret codes, cheap firearms, and conspiracies in which they worked. He shows how they fought with subterfuge, violence, and persuasion, all the while struggling to stay one step ahead of imperial authorities. Undergound Asia shows for the first time how Asia’s national liberation movements crucially depended on global action. And it reveals how the consequences of the revolutionaries’ struggle, for better or worse, shape Asia’s destiny to this day.

Sunil S. Amrith

Health patterns in Southeast Asia have changed profoundly over the past century. In that period, epidemic and chronic diseases, environmental transformations, and international health institutions have created new connections within the region and the increased interdependence of Southeast Asia with China and India. In this volume leading scholars provide a new approach to the history of health in Southeast Asia. Framed by a series of synoptic pieces on the "Landscapes of Health" in Southeast Asia in 1914, 1950, and 2014 the essays interweave local, national, and regional perspectives. They range from studies of long-term processes such as changing epidemics, mortality and aging, and environmental history to detailed accounts of particular episodes: the global cholera epidemic and the hajj, the influenza epidemic of 1918, WWII, and natural disasters. The writers also examine state policy on healthcare and the influence of organizations, from NGOs such as the China Medical Board and the Rockefeller Foundation to grassroots organizations in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Perspectives on the Long Twentieth Century

Histories of Health in Southeast Asia

Tim Harper shows on an epic scale how Asia's anti-imperial movements depended on global revolutionary networks, and he traces the lingering power of internationalist utopian dreams in the postcolonial world.

Tim Harper

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