Description
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Anglo-Maratha Campaigns And The Contest For India by Randolf G. S. Cooper
This is a crosscultural study of the political economy of war in South Asia. Randolf G. S. Cooper combines an overview of Maratha military culture with a battlebybattle analysis of the 1803 AngloMaratha Campaigns. Building on that foundation he challenges ethnocentric assumptions about British superiority in discipline drill and technology. He argues that these campaigns in which Arthur Wellesley served with distinction represent the military highwater mark of the Marathas who posed the last serious opposition to the formation of the British Raj. Dr Cooper asserts that the real contest for India was never a single decisive battle for the subcontinent. Rather it turned on a complex social and political struggle for control of the South Asian military economy. The author shows that victory in 1803 hinged as much on finance diplomacy politics and intelligence as it did on battlefield manoeuvre and war itself.