Winner of a state prize from the Delhi Administration, India’s Freedom Struggle is a brief and readable introduction to the story of India’s struggle for freedom. Covering the ninety years from the Great Revolt of 1857 to the attainment of independence in 1947, it deals with all important events, movements and leaders, providing a concise overview of this important period of India’s history.
Publisher’s description
This book is written as an introduction for general readers as well as students who have only a hazy notion of how the Indian Freedom struggle began and took shape between the Great Revolt of 1857 and the attainment of Independence in 1947. It is a brief and readable book on the subject, an accessible narrative on a large historical period. Some of the issues dealt with are the Khilafat and Non-co-operation movements, the emergence of Mahatma Gandhi, the Civil Disobedience and Quit India movements, the various constitutional negations with Wavell, Mountbatten et al., and the Partition of India.
Reviews
The great merit of this book is its simplicity. Mr. Heehs does not clutter up the text with unnecessary details. He has picked up the more salient points of the 90-year struggle and dwelt upon them briefly but effectively. There is a sense of continuity, an organic link between one incident and another. . . . Extremely readable [the book] is also accurate and shows an understanding of the Indian social and political milieu that is uncanny.
M. V. Kamath, The Economic Times (Mumbai)
To encapsulate the events of close on a century in simple readable prose without losing sight of salient landmarks and yet avoiding the pitfall of getting bogged down in details is no mean task for a historian. Peter Heehs . . . has done just this.
The Book Review (Delhi)
It has the essential virtues of its genre in that it is written in a clear readable style. . . . Heehs’s appraisal of the British record is inevitably critical, but not unbalanced. . . . One feels that the book deserves a place in schools – in Britain as well as India.
M. A. Laird, Asian Affairs (Hong Kong)
Books by Peter Heehs 