Lawrence James is a British historian best known for his title Rise and Fall of the British Empire, which was published about ten years ago and had a military-historical focus. In Raj, James again focuses on the more military aspects of his subject, but does not ignore cultural or political topics either.  The book weighs in at a hefty 650 pages, but through some deft organization, much of the bulk of the book seems to fly by quickly. This is no small achievement, since there is such a host of peoples, places, and pageantry that it would become dangerously easy to get lost in the pages of a more tedious work.
            Details are not sacrificed, though. If the reader is interested in almost any particular point of the British rule of India from the rise of Robert Clive (mid-18th century) to the departure of Viscount Mountbatten (1947), rest assured that it is romantically and intriguingly covered within the pages of Raj. Whether the reader wants to know the full story of the East India Company, is intrigued by the fall of the Mughal Empire, desires a full and detailed account of the 1857 mutiny, or fancies a sharp retelling of the Great Game between Victorian Great Britain and Imperial Russia, all of these topics are included in great detail with dashes of military flavor.
            The book is divided into six smaller parts: The Company Ascendant 1740-84, dealing with the East India Company’s initial pushes into the subcontinent; The Conquest of India: 1784-1856, describing British grand strategy and the Great Game; The Raj Consolidated: 1784-1856; The Mutiny: 1857-59; Triumphs and Tremors: 1860-1914; and Disturbances and Departures: 1914-48. Each section is about 100 pages long and is further subdivided into different chapters and sections, making Raj easily digestible and easy to put down and pick up again a couple of hours, or a couple of days, later.
            Raj is written in a more traditional, or some would say, more biased, manner than other contemporary works. The “great man” theory of history is what drives this title. Whether the great man in question is a British general or governor, or an Indian prince, these men drive the historical narrative. The teeming masses in the streets of India’s great cities only seem to cause trouble, especially in the second half of the book. James is definitely no imperial apologist either; the fall of the Raj and partition of India are portrayed tragically, while personalities like Ghandi and Nehru are not given as much screen time as their British counterparts. Raj is not for the politically correct crowd.
            Simultaneously, James does not put the Raj on a pedestal. He gives accounts of the numerous problems that the British government had to work through in their 200 year rule, and never fails to show how politically, culturally, religiously, and socially complex the Indian subcontinent was throughout the ages (and remains today). The religious divisions among the dozens of political entities that made up the tremendous Indian land mass come up repeatedly in the pages of Raj. British racism is also dealt with in detail with some great primary source material. Language that was acceptable to a 19th century infantryman stationed in New Delhi will be quite shocking to early 21st century readers.
            Raj is not for the faint of heart nor is it for those students of history seeking an apology for 200 years of British imperialism in the Indian subcontinent. James clearly demonstrates that he feels that India was much better off with the British than they would have been without them. It is up to the reader to decide if they agree or not. The intellectual journey on the way to that decision is a great ride.