Dawning of the Raj: The Life and Trials of Warren Hastings - Hardcover

Jeremy Bernstein

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1566632811 ISBN 13: 9781566632812

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee (UK), 2000

Synopsis

Nothing in the history of empire is stranger than the creation of British rule in India, when a small European island became master of a subcontinent ranging from the Indian Ocean to the Himalayas. In the late eighteenth century the person most responsible for this was Warren Hastings, Britains first governor-general of India. In Dawning of the Raj, Jeremy Bernstein brings to life in vivid colors Hastingss story amidst the rise of British power. Orphaned early, Hastings worked his way up from the lowest clerk in the East India Company to its highest office in India. His concern for native cultures led him to sponsor the first British expedition to Tibet and the first translation into English of the Bhagavadgita. Brilliant and autocratic, he also made enemies, and upon his return to England they charged him with high crimes and misdemeanors. His impeachment trial, one of the great spectacles of the age, lasted seven years and pitted Hastings against the likes of Edmund Burke and the playwright Richard Sheridan. It attracted the novelist Fanny Burney, who wrote of it with passion in her Journals. This parliamentary drama, replete with the trappings of state, forms the conclusion to Mr. Bernsteins fascinating, unusual, and completely captivating narrative. With 22 black-and-white illustrations.

About this title

About the Author

Jeremy Bernstein is a former staff writer for the New Yorker, contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, New York Review of Books, and Scientific American, among others, and author of numerous books.

From the Back Cover

This historical adventure story of the first order chronicles the life of Warren Hastings, who planted the roots of the British Empire in India. In the late eighteenth century Hastings worked his way up from the lowest clerk in the East India Company to become Britain's first governor-general of India. He sponsored the first British expedition to Tibet and the first translation into English of the Bhagavadgita. Yet upon his return to England his enemies charged him with "high crimes and misdemeanors". His trial was one of the great spectacles of the age. His impeachment, filled with drama and replete with the trappings of state, forms the conclusion to Jeremy Bernstein's gripping narrative.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee (UK)
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1566632811
• ISBN 13: 9781566632812
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 335