RaveIndia Tribune (IND)Eminently readable and dazzling ... Drawing on extensive private and public archives, Guha, in his inimitable style and with exemplary rigour, retrieves the lives of seven foreigners who deeply loved India ... Astonishing detail ... Rebels Against the Raj points out that the uniqueness of these foreigners lay in the fact that they made India their home whilst transcending their privileged western worlds. It was an eclectic mix of individuals, reflecting diverse shades of opinion. But the connecting thread was that they resisted the Raj and deftly combined writing with activism ... While the story of dissident Britons living in Britain is well known, we rarely hear of these foreign voices in India ... The book is rich in political conversations, personal friendships and antipathies, making it a compelling read. Rebels Against the Raj, like much of Guha’s earlier works on historical biography, signals an innovative direction in historiography, where biography crosses many boundaries and elegantly meets social and political history over a century. Painstakingly researched, this is history writing at its best ... A masterful study.
