Kim A. Wagner – författare

''You have given a faithful portrait of a Thug''s life, his ceremonies, and his acts'' Often overshadowed by Kipling''s Kim or Forster''s A Passage to India, Philip Meadows Taylor''s forgotten classic, Confessions of a Thug (1839), is nevertheless the most influential novel of early nineteenth-century British India. This was the first dramatic account to expose a European readership to the fantastic world of the murderous Thugs, or highway robbers, who strangled their victims and who have ever since been a stable of Western popular culture. Writing in the voice of a captured Thug, Taylor presents an Orientalist fantasy that is part picaresque adventure and part colonial exposé. Confessions of a Thug offers a unique glimpse of the colonial world in the making, revealing how the British imagined themselves to be omniscient and in complete control of their Indian subjects. This unique critical edition makes available a fascinating and significant work of Empire writing, in addition to excerpts from the original colonial texts that inspired Taylor''s narrative.

''You have given a faithful portrait of a Thug''s life, his ceremonies, and his acts'' Often overshadowed by Kipling''s Kim or Forster''s A Passage to India, Philip Meadows Taylor''s forgotten classic, Confessions of a Thug (1839), is nevertheless the most influential novel of early nineteenth-century British India. This was the first dramatic account to expose a European readership to the fantastic world of the murderous Thugs, or highway robbers, who strangled their victims and who have ever since been a stable of Western popular culture. Writing in the voice of a captured Thug, Taylor presents an Orientalist fantasy that is part picaresque adventure and part colonial exposé. Confessions of a Thug offers a unique glimpse of the colonial world in the making, revealing how the British imagined themselves to be omniscient and in complete control of their Indian subjects. This unique critical edition makes available a fascinating and significant work of Empire writing, in addition to excerpts from the original colonial texts that inspired Taylor''s narrative.

'You have given a faithful portrait of a Thug's life, his ceremonies, and his acts'Often overshadowed by Kipling's Kim or Forster's A Passage to India, Philip Meadows Taylor's forgotten classic, Confessions of a Thug (1839), is nevertheless the most influential novel of early nineteenth-century British India. This was the first dramatic account to expose a European readership to the fantastic world of the murderous Thugs, or highway robbers, who strangled their victims and who have ever since been a stable of Western popular culture. Writing in the voice of a captured Thug, Taylor presents an Orientalist fantasy that is part picaresque adventure and part colonial exposé. Confessions of a Thug offers a unique glimpse of the colonial world in the making, revealing how the British imagined themselves to be omniscient and in complete control of their Indian subjects. This unique critical edition makes available a fascinating and significant work of Empire writing, in addition to excerpts from the original colonial texts that inspired Taylor's narrative.

“Chronicles the run up to Jallianwala Bagh with spellbinding . . . focus. . . . Mr. Wagner’s achievement is one of balance . . . and, above, all, of perspective.” (The Wall Street Journal)The Amritsar Massacre of 1919 was a seminal moment in the history of the British Empire, yet it remains poorly understood. In this dramatic account, Kim A. Wagner details the perspectives of ordinary people and argues that General Dyer’s order to open fire at Jallianwalla Bagh was an act of fear. Situating the massacre within the “deep” context of British colonial mentality and the local dynamics of Indian nationalism, Wagner provides a genuinely nuanced approach to the bloody history of the British Empire.“Mr Wagner argues his case fluently and rigorously in this excellent book.” —The Economist“Written with a humane commitment to the truth that will impress.” —The Times“Skillfully maps a tale of growing tensions, precipitate action, and troubled aftermath.” —The Telegraph“A compelling account” —Financial Times“Wagner''s postmortem of an imperial disaster should be widely read.” —R.A. Callahan, emeritus, Choice“The fullest, and by far the most authoritative, account of the causes and course of the Jallianwala massacre in any language.” —Nigel Collett, author of The Butcher of Amritsar“Mining a variety of sources – diaries, memoirs and court testimonies—[Wagner] uncovers fresh perspectives and examines the relation between colonial panic and state brutality with sophistication, sincerity and style.” —Santanu Das, author of India, Empire, and First World War Culture“Analytically sharp but gripping to read, the book is a page-turner”—Barbara D. Metcalf, co-author of A Concise History of India“An important book.” –Yasmin Khan, author of The Partition

In March 1906, American soldiers on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines surrounded and killed 1000 local men, women, and children, known as Moros, on top of an extinct volcano. The so-called 'Battle of Bud Dajo' was hailed as a triumph over an implacable band of dangerous savages, a "brilliant feat of arms" according to President Theodore Roosevelt. Some contemporaries, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Mark Twain, saw the massacre for what it was, but they were the exception and the U.S. military authorities successfully managed to bury the story. Despite the fact that the slaughter of Moros had been captured on camera, the memory of the massacre soon disappeared from the historical record.In Massacre in the Clouds, Kim A. Wagner meticulously recovers the history of a forgotten atrocity and the remarkable photograph that exposed its grim logic. His vivid, unsparing account of the massacre-which claimed hundreds more lives than Wounded Knee and My Lai combined-reveals the extent to which practices of colonial warfare and violence, derived from European imperialism, were fully embraced by Americans with catastrophic results.

In 1963, a human skull was discovered in a pub in south-east England. The handwritten note found inside revealed it to be that of Alum Bheg, an Indian soldier in British service who had been blown from a cannon for his role in the 1857 Uprising, his head brought back as a grisly war-trophy by an Irish officer present at his execution. The skull is a troublesome relic of both anti-colonial violence and the brutality and spectacle of British retribution. Kim Wagner presents an intimate and vivid account of life and death in British India in the throes of the largest rebellion of the nineteenth century. Examining the Victorians’ macabre fetish for collecting and exhibiting body parts, the book also offers a critical assessment of British imperialism that speaks to contemporary debates about the legacies of Empire and the myth of the ‘Mutiny’.