Of the dozens of books that relate to Orde Wingate, the majority deal primarily with either the Chindit operations into Burma or serve as answers to the character assassination that was done posthumously after Wingate's death in a plane crash in 1944. Of the remainder, this book, along with the authorized bio by Christopher Sykes, and the most recent one by John Bierman & Colin Smith, stand out as the most complete. Of these, the Sykes version is the earliest, from 1959 and the author did not have access to certain records that the latter did. The Bierman and Smith version is quite thorough, but ends with some editorializing commentary on the current state of affairs in the Middle East totally contrary to those views that Wingate himself held. For this reason it leaves a sour taste in one's mouth. Royle's book suffers none of these flaws, and is perhaps the easiest read of them all. It is an excellent introduction to the life and thoughts of a man whom it will be revealed in time, was in fact a man of destiny, as Churchill's epitaph for him stated he was likely to become.

Being a hardcore history buff, I picked up this book at a hefty 35.00 price from the local book store, and delved into its 500 pages. The book was delightful, with humor (in a dry, British style) pervading all of the passages. However, the book became confusing, and the lack of maps (as mentioned numerous times above) helped to confuse the reader. I ended up pulling out a National Geographic map of the Balkans and Crimea to follow along. The writer tends to use confusing grammatical choices (of course I am not British), and the editor should use spell- and grammar-check more often. If you as a reader and history fan can overcome these downsides, this book is perhaps the most solid history of the most forgotten war (after all, 1815-1914 is taught to our schoolchildren as a time of "the grand European peace").

Crimea: The Great Crimean War, 1854-1856 by Trevor Royle may be improperly titled since it is a history of much more than the Crimean War. While concentrating on the Crimean War, Royle gives the reader a thorough overview of European history from the end of the Napoleonic conflicts till the outbreak of World War II. The book is history at its finest since it not only explains the actual events but also discusses the historical context of the War and how the war effected future events.

Royle writes in a very reader friendly manner and the book easily holds the interest of the reader. If the book has a weakness it is its continual focus on the British perspective. At times this is disturbing considering the fact that the French made a much greater investment in men and arms to the conflict and the French front around Sevastopol was where the crucial battles were fought. Maybe, it is too much to expect a British historian to concentrate on anything other than the British involvement.

To Royle's credit he does not ignore the French, Turkish or Sardinian role, nor is he an apologist for the numerous errors that the British made that led to countless and needless deaths. Much of the book is devoted to discussing the inadequacies of the British supply system and the miserable hospital conditions. The chapter relating to Florence Nightingale and her difficulties in reforming the hospital and medical system is compelling. Royle also discusses the inadequacies of the British army and their failure to move beyond the strategy and tactics of the Napoleonic Wars. These failures and the ability to purchase commissions are contrasted with the more modern approach of the French.

Perhaps the strongest part of the book relates to the diplomatic front, although the discussion is almost exclusively focused on the British and only mentions the other participants as they relate to British interests. In reading the book, one gets a real understanding of what the British war aims were, even though they were murky at the time.

This a book that is well worth reading.

Having never learned much about the Crimean War, aside from Tennyson's famous bit of poetry, I was a bit intimidated by the breadth of this book. That ended once I opened it and found a coherent and well-annotated history that had enough meat to satisfy hard-core historians, yet enough cheese to intrigue and lure along the casual reader. While I cannot say "I couldn't put it down," (the author's English writing style compelled me to take periodic breaks to absorb) I eagerly went through this book and not only learned a great deal about the war itself but, as Royle's thesis observes, its greater impact on warfare, medicine, politics, media, and nearly every other aspect of the world. If you believe Royle, and I am inclined to, the Crimean War was a seminal event of World History.

In all its complexity, this really is a simple book: it is simply an exuberant vision of India.

I wanted a book that would give me an English Colonialist view of India. It is a rather hard thing to find: few English Victorian writers of any consequence wrote about India. It wasn't until later, ie, Orwell and Forster, that it became a popular topic, and they wrote with a vastly different attitude. I just wanted to know what an Englishman thought of the "jewel in the English colonial crown".

What I found is exactly what I wanted: so exactly that it caught me off guard. Kipling offers no politics, neither "problems of England in India" or "The White Man's Burden". Kim is, quite simply, a vision of India. Exuberant, complex, vibrant, full of energy and life and change. This is Kipling's India. It is a beautiful, mysterious, dangerous, amazing place.

There is a hint of mass market fiction here -- the basic structure being a young boy, a prodigy, uniquely equipped to help the adults in important "adult" matters -- reminds me of Ender's Game or Dune (both books I loved, but not exactly "literature". But perhaps this isn't either. Such was the claim of critic after critic. But anyway.) Yet in reality it is only a device -- an excuse for Kipling to take his boy on adventures and to immerse us more fully in the pugnant waters of Indian culture -- or cultures.

As far as the English/Colonialism question goes, perhaps the real reason Kipling drew so much flak is because he deals his English critics the most cruel insult -- worse than calling them evil, or stupid, or wrong, he implies that they just don't matter that much. Kipling's India is a diverse place, with a plethora of people groups in it, divided by caste, religion, ethnicity, whatever. And the English, the "Sahibs"? Another people group. That's all. They don't dominate or corrupt or really change anything in any profound way; they just sort of become part of the broiling swirl of cultures and peoples that is India.
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williekrischke@hotmail.com

This is a very entertaining novel, though not as good as the best of Kipling's short stories. As an adventure-oriented bildungsroman, Kim is well constructed with its gradual exposure of the ethnic and religous diversity of India, its engaging characters, and good quality of writing. While written as an adventure novel, Kim is also Kipling's prediction of the British Raj would become. The hero, Kim O'Hara, is in many ways an idealization of what saw as the logical conclusion of British India; a hybrid composed of both Indian and British elements. In an ironic way, this is how things turned out in British India. But where Kim is ethnically British with a largely Indian cultural background, the real inheritors of the British Raj were ethnic Indians (of a variety of ethnicities, castes, and faiths) whose outlook is colored strongly by Western influences.

How this book is read in a 'post-colonial' era is an interesting question. It would be easy, and wrong, to dismiss this book merely as an Imperialist tract, though Kipling clearly supported British Imperial control. It is even wronger to attack Kipling's racism, though there are unquestionably stereotyped elements present. In many ways, Kim is a celebration of India's ethnic and religous diversity. Probably the most unsympathetic characters in the book are not Indian, but Britishers with provincial outlooks. Kipling's support of the Empire is rather more subtle. It is clear that he viewed the existence of the huge and relatively tolerant polyglot society that was the Raj as the result of relatively benign British rule and protection. This is probably true. Without British overlordship, India is likely to have been a congeries of competing states riven by ethnic and religous divisions. Where Kipling is profoundly misleading is what he leaves out, particularly the economic exploitation India and crucial role India played in the Imperial economy.

To be honest, I disdained Kipling as a writer ever since turning away from the Jungle Book movie. When pressed to read his more representative novel "Kim", however, I was much more impressed. Kipling picks up on the bildungsroman theme in his book about a young white boy growing up in British India. True, the reader feels the heavy intrusion of Kipling in the narrative, such as the caricatured descriptions of ethnic peoples, but one also feels a genuine fondness for India, however patronizingly misplaced.

I thought some passages were quite remarkable for a writer at the height of the British Raj, such as the occasional sympathetic treatment of Indians and the allowance of deep relationships between the conquerors and the conquered (e.g., Kim and Mahbub Ali). The feeling of youth is well-given and Kipling succeeds at making the horror of imperialism both remote and romantic.