Tarak Barkawi, “Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in World War II” (Cambridge UP, 2017)

Tarak Barkawi, “Soldiers of Empire: Indian an...

Up next

Susanne Vees-Gulani, 'Icon Dresden: Baroque City, Air War Symbol, Political Token" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

Icon Dresden: Baroque City, Air War Symbol, Political Token (University of Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Susanne Vees-Gulani explores how memory and politics in Dresden after its 1945 bombing are deeply intertwined with the city’s urban history. It highlights the complex origins o ...  Show more

Sidra Hamidi, "After Fission: Recognition and Contestation in the Atomic Age" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Nuclear status is typically treated as a stable feature of a state's capacity to possess, use, or build nuclear weapons. Challenging this view, After Fission: Recognition and Contestation in the Atomic Age (Cambridge University Press, 2026) by Dr. Sidra Hamidi reveals how states ...  Show more

Recommended Episodes

221 - Training the Indian Army
The WW2 Podcast

The Indian Army was the largest volunteer army during the Second World War. Indian Army divisions fought in the Middle East, North Africa and Italy - and went to make up the overwhelming majority of the troops in South East Asia. Over two million personnel served in the Indian ...

  Show more

197 - Kohima
The WW2 Podcast

Fought between 8 March and 18 July 1944, the battles of Imphal and Kohima were the turning point of one of the most gruelling campaigns of the Second World War (1939-45). The decisive Japanese defeat in north-east India became the springboard for the Fourteenth Army's subseque ...

  Show more

205 - Victory to Defeat: The British Army 1918-40
The WW2 Podcast

As some of you may know, I am also a First World War historian, and the academic history of the war can be very different from the public perspective, which dwells on the first two years of the war. 

Forgetting the victories of 1917 and 1918 is not new; it is something ...

  Show more

Douglas Kerr, "Orwell and Empire" (Oxford UP, 2022)
New Books in British Studies

George Orwell was born in India and served in the Imperial Police in Burma as a young man. Douglas Kerr's book Orwell and Empire (Oxford UP, 2022) is a study of his writing about the East and the East in his writing. It argues that empire was central to his cultural identity and ...  Show more