Raffles and the British Invasion of Java
Author(s): Tim Hannigan
On a hot August afternoon in 1811, an army of 10,000 British redcoats splashed ashore through the muddy shallows off Batavia (the former name of Jakarta, Indonesia's capital) to conquer the Dutch colony of Java. They would remain there for five turbulent years. Drawing on both British and Javanese archival sources, this entertaining and highly readable narrative history-cum-biography explores the bloody battles and furious controversies that marked British rule in Java, and reveals the future founder of Singapore, Thomas Stamford Raffles - long celebrated as a hero, a liberal and a visionary - in a shocking new light, showing how he crushed dissent, looted palaces and incited massacres to further his own insatiable ambitions. The book features the dramatic Battle of Batavia, the sinister British expedition to Palembang, the 1812 sacking and looting of Yogyakarta, and various fights between soldiers and civilians, buffaloes and tigers, and Englishmen and Javanese.
Product Information
'An excellent, authoritative account of the brief period of British rule, and the role of Raffles, in the early 19th century' Lonely Planet Indonesia ' - a vivid portrait - a gripping narrative - ' The Straits Times, Singapore 'A controversial reassessment of the mythical Raffles that seeks to question most of our comfortable assumptions about the "founder of Singapore"' Nigel Barley, author of "In The Footsteps of Stamford Raffles"
Tim Hannigan (London, UK) is an author and journalist specialising in Indonesia and the Indian Subcontinent. His first book, Murder in the Hindu Kush (The History Press, 2011), is a biography of the intriguing 19th-century British explorer George Hayward, and was shortlisted for the 2011 Boardman Tasker Prize.
General Fields
- :
- : Monsoon Books Private, Limited
- : woodslane
- : 0.34
- : March 2013
- : 198mm X 129mm
- : Singapore
- : April 2013
- : books
Special Fields
- : Tim Hannigan
- : Paperback
- : 513
- : 959.820223
- : 368
- : Black and white
