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Underground Asia
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  • Published: 2 July 2020
  • ISBN: 9781846145636
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 864
Categories:

Underground Asia

Global Revolutionaries and the Assault on Empire

Formats & editions
Paperback
17 May 2022
EBook
2 July 2020
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The story of the hidden struggle waged by secret networks around the world to destroy European imperialism

The end of Europe's empires has so often been seen as a story of high politics and warfare. In Tim Harper's remarkable new book the narrative is very different: it shows how empires were fundamentally undermined from below by young radicals from across Asia. They gathered in the great cities of Asia - Calcutta, Singapore, Batavia, Hanoi, Tokyo, Shanghai, Canton and Hong Kong - and plotted the end of the colonial regimes with ceaseless ingenuity, both through persuasion and terrorism. Many were caught and killed or imprisoned, but others would go on to rule their newly independent countries.

Drawing on an amazing array of sources, Underground Asia turns upside-down our understanding of twentieth-century empire. The reader enters an extraordinary world of stowaways, false identities, secret codes, cheap firearms, assassinations and conspiracies, as young Asians made their own plans for their future.
  • Published: 2 July 2020
  • ISBN: 9781846145636
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 864
Categories:

Also by Tim Harper

Forgotten Wars
Forgotten Wars
Forgotten Armies
Forgotten Armies
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Praise for Underground Asia

PRAISE FOR FORGOTTEN ARMIES: 'An essential and stimulating account of this crucial time.'

Patrick French, author of The World Is What It Is

PRAISE FOR FORGOTTEN WARS: 'Lucid, inexhaustible scholarship ... majestic.'

Peter Preston, The Observer

They have done a marvellous job in recovering the largely forgotten history of its end in Asia. Their work is not only a model of scholarship, but a delight to read.

Piers Brendon, The Independent

This is a spectacular book: in its scope, encyclopaedic knowledge, understanding of southeast Asia, and the light it throws on a neglected subject, the struggle for British Asia.

Martin Jacques, The Guardian