Amritsar Massacre Research Articles

Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh's courageous sacrifice in the Indian nationalist movement

Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh is considered one of the most influential young revolutionaries of the Indian nationalist movement. His courageous sacrifice for the Indian nationalist movement is remembered as Martyrs’ Day on 23 March. On this day, on 23 March 1931, Bhagat Singh Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar were hanged. To liberate the country of India, these brave sons had kissed the noose with a smile. That is why this day is called Martyr’s Day. At that time Bhagat Singh was only 23 years old. At the young age of 23, he along with his comrades sacrificed their lives for the motherland, due to which Bhagat Singh became a favorite of the youth during the freedom struggle. This famous slogan of “Inquilab Zindabad” had expressed the voice of patriotism in every vein of the heart, mind and body of the Indian youth. Bhagat Singh was born on 27 September 1907 at 09.00 am in Banga village, District – Lyallpur. His father’s name was Sardar Kishan Singh Sandhu and mother’s name was Vidyavati Kaur. At the time of his birth, his father Kishan Singh and some family members were in jail. His uncle Ajit Singh was always in front of him as a motivating force and role model. His father Sardar Kishan Singh, who worked all his life for the independence of the country, was his source of inspiration. Inspired by the revolutionary family, the spirit of courage, sacrifice and patriotism developed in Bhagat Singh. In his early days, Bhagat Singh supported Mahatma Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement. But later, due to Gandhiji canceling the non-cooperation movement, some anger arose among them. But like the entire nation, he respected Gandhiji. Bhagat Singh was only 12 years old at the time of Jallianwala Bagh massacre. This massacre filled Bhagat Singh’s mind with anger against the British. At the same time, Bhagat Singh was so disturbed by the hanging of four revolutionaries and the imprisonment of 16 other revolutionaries in the Kakori incident that he merged his party Navjawan Bharat Sabha with the Hindustan Republican Association and gave it a new name, Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. “Today the desire for sarfaroshi is in our hearts, let us see how much strength the killer has in his arms” These are the words of those revolutionaries whose story of courage, sacrifice and bravery is remembered across the country. The country always pays tribute to his martyrdom.

Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire by Caroline Elkins

This weighty and important book charts the bespattered history of British imperial violence, from the colonial small wars of the Victorian era to the brutal counterinsurgencies in the age of decolonization. Elkins focuses on moments of dramatic bloodletting rather than on more quotidian forms of political and economic exploitation or the discursive “violence” of words. Her extensive secondary source reading and archival research—including consultation of 10,300 files of recently discovered documents at London’s secretive Hanslope facility—highlights flashpoints of brutality like the Amritsar Massacre and the “Black and Tan” terror in Ireland. She also treats other, lesser-known episodes, like the repression of the Zaghloul protests in Egypt (1919).According to Elkins, violence in the British Empire became worse over time; her narrative is replete with disturbing descriptions of detention, torture, and rape, as perpetrated with broken bottles, guns, sticks, and knives. It reached its crescendo with the British campaigns in postwar Malaya, and, above all, in Kenya, where Britain tortured Mau Mau suspects in one of world history’s “largest archipelagos of detention” (557). Along the way, Elkins deftly navigates a global web of inter-imperial connections, as colonial agents like Orde Wingate and Gerald Templar moved from one theater of violence to the next, honing and transmitting the lessons and tactics of repression. Rogue “men on the spot” often committed atrocities, but imperial violence resulted from more than a few “bad apples” (however much spokesmen like Winston Churchill and Enoch Powell tried, strategically, to scapegoat certain figures and thus prolong imperial rule).Central to Elkins’ argument is that colonial crimes resulted from larger cultural, political, and legal structures institutionalized by Whitehall, Downing Street, and colonial administrations that claimed despotic powers unthinkable at home. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the British Empire embodied the tensions of liberal imperialism, which rested on what Elkins terms a “legalized lawlessness.” Even as Britons celebrated the rule of law, democratic reform, and an apparently benign, though racially infused civilizing mission, the “moral effect” of bombs and barbed wire, and of castrations and chemical weapons, sustained British power. In the process, the colonial state provided systematic cover to its agents on the ground through martial law and emergency declarations, along with censorship and spineless commissions of inquiry aimed at deflection rather than uncovering gruesome realities. Elkins’ command of this legal history is impressive.Elkins suggests that Britons’ remarkable ignorance of such imperial atrocities has abetted their post-Brexit fantasies of a reborn “global Britain.” The violence, however, was self-defeating; atrocities only fortified anti-colonial resistance. Those who “experienced the empire as brown and black subjects”—George Padmore, C. L. R. James, and Mohandas K. Gandhi, to whom Elkins gives voice—“saw but shades of difference between fascism and imperialism” (297). For them, as for Elkins, the liberal dressing of “partnerships,” “progress,” and “development” failed to conceal an “all-too-familiar iron fist” behind a “velvet glove” (28).Elkins is right to differentiate imperial Britain from Nazi Germany, where aggression was naked and race was immutable. But Legacy of Violence offers a powerful corrective to apologetic versions of the past (which Elkins charts in a historiographical analysis of imperial history), while filling in gaps left by “Operation Legacy,” a state-sponsored program to destroy compromising official documents. Elkins’ 875 pages of meticulous research is a monumental indictment of empire. In its light, her recent expert testimony to the British High Court supporting reparations for Kenyan victims of torture is by no means surprising.The British Empire is no more; Britain lost superpower status following World War II and Bretton Woods. A sustained economic analysis of the declining pound sterling provides context for Britain’s shifting place in the world. Furthermore, intelligence failures and military blunders permitted colonial subjects to seize the rights and freedoms promised but never granted. Yet the age of empire remains: In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States (to whom Kipling addressed his “White Man’s Burden”) practiced a familiar repertoire of torture, secrecy, and “hearts and minds” rhetoric—a genealogy Elkins might have done more to explore.1 Meanwhile, Russia, with its terror bombing, imperial hubris, and sham referenda in Ukraine, pursues its own far cruder version of “legalized lawlessness.” A broader embrace of comparative and transnational history would thus offer more global insight into the legacies of imperial violence that shape the world today.

The Rise and Fall of a Wilsonian Dream

This book represents an archive based, original, and in-depth study or biography of the Williamstown Institute of Politics (IOP) and its inspiration Harry Garfield, son of the assassinated U.S. President James A. Garfield. Harry Garfield’s principal claim to historical recognition is described and to some extent explained in this interesting study. Garfield established an interwar-years center for the study and discussion of international affairs with a view to educating the U.S. public about the world and reducing nationalist feeling, in favor of a Wilsonian League of Nations vision of international order. Ultimately, the IOP project lasted just over a decade, shone quite brilliantly in the transatlantic elite consciousness, and passed away suddenly in August 1932 with Garfield’s own retirement as President of Williams College. Although the author does not venture to suggest this, nor so classify the IOP and its organizers, funders, networks, and leading speakers, the Institute in effect represented elite U.S. and British, and some other, organic intellectuals at a time of global power shifts. These shifts occurred on a global scale in the aftermath of World War I, the Russian revolution, the Amritsar massacre, ferment in China, Africa, and the Middle East, and rising democratic movements among workers and women. Public opinion—unchained and untutored—stalked the land. Massive change was in the air, colonialism had led the world to the deadliest war in human history, and the British empire’s reformist wing looked to their Anglo-Saxon cousin to save the empire from obsolescence. The book shows how a specific group, long-neglected by historians, played a key role in airing ideas and debates and differences at a time of anxiety about the direction of world affairs. Complementarily, this was also the coming of age of east coast U.S. foreign policy elites, looking for their place in the sun, armed with a new ideology—liberal internationalism—to replace moribund colonialism. The future belonged to the U.S. elite—but the American people were not convinced. It was to educate them in the new realities that the IOP came into being, to realize U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s progressive mission. Indeed, no less a figure than Antonio Gramsci himself, had lavished praise on Wilson’s internationalism, despite the limitations and great power politics of the proposed League of Nations.

Khadi Marigolds for the Martyrs of Jallianwala Bagh (India)

Folklorists have long studied the nature of ephemeralities in a range of vernacular responses to tragic events. This paper extends the scope of ephemeralities by arguing that the tangible representations, such as buildings and objects, are important anchors for socially reconstructing historical events. Focusing on the site of a cold-blooded genocide in India—Jallianwala Bagh—the present analysis transcends a predominant western frame of reference to highlight the imperativeness of preserving the trauma site, as it happened. The analysis reveals that a critical esthetic aspect of the site is the tangible absence of bodily ephemerality—an aspect that is intricately tied to martyrdom as opposed to victimhood. With the rise of transgressions that potentially rupture esthetics of memorial sites, it becomes essential to look for alternate tangible representations that transcend the spatial confines of the trauma sites. The quest ends with Khadi Marigolds that embody the essence of Jallianwala Bagh massacre and holds the key for perpetuating the memories of the martyrs for years to come in the service of “never again”.

A Historical Review of Revolutionary Connections Between India and Ireland

This article visits moments of connected transnational histories of India and Ireland. Both the nations suffered under colonial rule. While Ireland attained independence from Britain in 1922, it continued to influence Indian revolutionaries and nationalists in several ways. The article provides an overarching review of some historical events that were reported in contemporary newspapers and remain main archives today for our knowledge on transnational anti colonial movements. Beginning with the perception of mutiny in Indian and Irish memory – the author explores key events such as De Valera’s address to Gadar Party in America in 1920, reporting of Jallian wala Bagh massacre in Ireland, Connaught Rangers’ mutiny of 1920 and 1916 Easter Rising.

A Portrait of Two Carnages: A Comparative Study between Jallianwala Bagh and Croke Park Massacres

This brief article attempts to make a comparative study between the two infamous massacres orchestrated by the British Empire: the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919, and the Croke Park Massacre of 1920. By discussing the issues of the identities of the perpetrators and the victims, and also how the martyrs of these massacres are remembered in the present times, this article aims to draw a historical axis connecting the predicaments of Indian and Irish independence movements against colonial despotism. It also highlights the representations of these two incidents in the domain of popular culture, by focusing mainly on the arena of films. The article, which does not initate a critical historical discussion about the causes and effects of the two massacres, aims to investigate the aftershocks of two genocides driven by imperial despotism, rather than delving into a historical study of the Jallianwala Bagh and Croke Park incidents.

The Spectacle of Death and Deception: Analysing Fictional and Non-Fictional Writings on the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

The Spectacle of Death and Deception: Analysing Fictional and Non-Fictional Writings on the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Peace, Poverty and Betrayal, A New History of British India by Roderick Matthews

Reviewed by: Peace, Poverty and Betrayal, A New History of British India by Roderick Matthews Adam Prime Peace, Poverty and Betrayal, A New History of British India By Roderick Matthews. London: Hurst & Co, 2021. In his new book, Peace, Poverty and Betrayal, A New History of British India, Roderick Matthews writes, “… events were more often shaped by opportunism, misjudgements, and mistaken assumptions, especially on the British side.” This idea that British rule in India was inconsistent, haphazard, and often more luck than judgement, is the central tenet of Matthews’ tome. Yet, to term this a “new” history of British India is misleading. The uneven nature of the development of British rule on the subcontinent has of course been previously considered by historians. Most notably, Jon Wilson has written of the chaotic nature of British rule in India in his 2016 tome, India Conquered.i In his work, Wilson took aim at nostalgia, pointing to the fact that what Britons tell themselves today about empire is coloured by their removal from the period and by notions of nationalism and superiority. Matthews, on the other hand, seeks to exonerate himself from the right wing, nostalgic view of empire or the left wing, revisionist view, aiming for a more critical study of empire. In his opening gambit he states: “the point is not to ask whether British rule in India was a good or bad thing; like all governments it can be seen as both.” Yet, by seeking to take a middle ground, Matthews, on occasion, puts forth arguments from both sides of the political fence. Matthews’ strongest work can be found in the opening chapter, where he unpacks a host of key terms related to British India, and empire more generally. For instance, Matthews unpicks the complex term “imperialism,” showing that in the context of British India, it is not a neat term that easily fits with how the British expanded and controlled India. Similarly, the author tackles the concept of “Divide and Rule,” pointing to the fact that it is impossible to properly pin down the policy and that in looking for evidence of a policy almost anything can be brought into the argument. Here, as is his central argument, Matthews asserts British rule was not that neat. After similar unpacking of concepts such as “modernity” and “liberalism,” “masses and elites,” this opening chapter closes with a brief discussion of the 1857 Rebellion. What started as a military mutiny at the military cantonment of Meerut soon spread throughout Bengal. The rebels and mutineers, Matthews claims, had a host of reasons for their actions and variable objectives, and they cannot therefore be taken as one singular group. The point being that the opposition to British rule was as inconsistent and haphazard as British rule itself. What follows is a series of chapters forming a chronological journey through Britain’s initial involvement in India as traders, with the granting of a royal charter to the East India Company in 1600, to their expansion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, halted by the 1857 Rebellion, which ultimately saw the British Raj and Empress Victoria replace the East India Company. After 1857, Matthews charts the rise of the Indian National Congress, the First and Second World War, non-cooperation and ultimately, partition. As is necessary given the breadth of the book, Matthews’ writing is succinct, yet informative too. He is able to distil complex issues concisely but also keep the book informative while not losing flow or pace. Events such as the 1919 Amritsar Massacre are restricted to just three pages, yet the importance of the massacre is not lost on the reader. As well as key events, key individuals are also discussed. Lord Curzon’s time as Viceroy of India (1899–1905) for example, is considered in terms of his reforms and reviews, events in which he was involved, but Matthews also explores his character, such as his efficiency and energy which drove him forward but also lead him to clash with those he worked with, including Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, Lord Kitchener, a conflict which eventually cost Curzon his role in India. It is to this reviewer’s dismay that...

Contribution of Sardar Patel in the making of India and the relevance of his ideas

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's service to the country, social service as well as patriotism and his determination, self-confidence, determination power, unshakable power, firm faith and devotion to work, he is known as 'Iron Man'. Is. Born on 31 October 1875 in Kheda, Gujarat, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was from a simple farmer family. Since childhood, his specialty of hard work and fearlessness, he passed the law examination in 1910 with first class, for which he also got a prize of Rs 750. Sardar Patel came into active politics of the country from 1917. In protest against the Jallianwala-Bagh massacre (1919), he went to Bardoli, influenced by the Satyagraha movement of Mahatma Gandhi and in 1920, where he spent his whole life in getting India's independence.

A Study on the Black Day of Indian History - The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

A Study on the Black Day of Indian History - The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Nanak Singh’s Khooni Vaisakhi: The Poet and the Poem

This paper provides insight into key aspects of the Punjabi poem, Khooni Vaisakhi, written by Nanak Singh, who was present at the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 13 April, 1919, in Amritsar, Punjab. The poem was published in 1920, banned soon after, and was essentially lost for the next 60 years. The current author translated the poem into English, and published it in 2019. This paper uses family history and excerpts of his translation to discuss Nanak Singh’s motivation in writing the poem, the events leading up to the massacre, and themes of nationalism and communal amity. It describes Nanak Singh’s evolution as a novelist, and his transformation into a nationalist after the massacre. Some brief comments on the poem’s relevance for the present are also included.

Race, Colonialism, Resistance and Denial

The death of George Floyd in July 2020 shook the world. It brought many people to face to face with the reality of the institutional state violence that is an integral part of the racism that Black communities face in the Western world and sparked Black Lives Matter movements around the world. In the UK, George Floyd’s death sparked demonstrations involving young Black and white activists resulting in direct action that challenged the national historical narrative about Britain’s involvement in slavery and the nature of the British Empire. During a Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol in June 2021, the protesters toppled a statue of Edward Colston, a figure presented as a philanthropist and municipal benefactor in Bristol’s history and sank it in the harbour. The reaction from the State was one of fury. The Prime Ministers Officer issued a statement saying that the tearing down of a Bristol statue was a ‘criminal act’ and the people responsible should be ‘held to account’. The Home Secretary responded to a question about the incident in the Parliament stated, ‘What we witnessed yesterday was mob rule, which is completely out of kilter with the rule of law and unacceptable’. There was no acknowledgement in the Government response that the toppling of Colston’s statue was influenced by the fact that from 1669 – 1692, Colston was the Deputy Governor of the Royal Africa Company. During his tenure as deputy governor, he effectively ran the company; an estimated 84,000 African people were transported to the Caribbean and Americas, with an estimated 20,000 deaths during transportations. No echoes of the sentiments expressed by Marvin Rees, the Mayor of Bristol, who said, ‘I can not pretend that the statue is anything but an affront to me. Not just as a Jamaican heritage man but as a human being’. The government response reflected a wellestablished white-washing of British history. A narrative that says that even though Britain was involved in the slave trade, the British were the good guys because they were the first to abolish it. A narrative that barely mentions the period of colonialism and Empire other than promoting the racist view that Britain brought civilisation and values to the world. The desire to ignore the realities of past the has not only emerged in the context of a refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Black lives matter protest but in a more sustained attempt by leading British politicians to rehabilitate the Empire over the past two decades. In 2002, former Labour Party Prime Minister Gordon Brown stated that Britain must stop apologising for its colonial past and recognise that it has produced some of the greatest ideas in history. He also stated I think we should celebrate much of our past rather than apologise for it, that we should talk, rightly so, about British values, and called for the ‘great British values’ - freedom, tolerance, civic duty to be admired as some of our most successful exports. Similarly, in 2013 former Prime Minister David Cameron, when visiting the memorial in India to the 1919 Amritsar Massacre where hundreds of Sikh protesters were gunned down by troops under British command, declared, ‘I think there is an enormous amount to be proud of in what the British Empire did and was responsible for – but, of course, there were bad events as well as good. ‘The bad events we should learn from – and the good events we should celebrate’. The State reaction resulting from the toppling of the Colston statue typified this. A feeling of national panic was engendered by the claim that Black Lives matters protesters were likely to topple a statue of Winston Churchill as part of a protest in London. A narrative was constructed that extremists had taken over the Black Lives Matter protests. In a series of tweets in the run-up to the BLM London protest, Prime Minister Boris Johnson asserted ‘We cannot now try to edit or censor our past’, ‘We cannot pretend to have a different history’, ‘Those statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. To tear them down would be to lie about our history and impoverish the education of...

‘Using a Blacksmith’s Hammer to Crush a Fly’: Jallianwala Bagh, Public Order and Popular Protests in late Colonial India

This article reconstructs the unfolding of events in India in March–April 1919 that led to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. It evaluates the circumstances and the administrative and military response from a legal history perspective. It argues that the Jallianwala Bagh massacre was not a unique event but culminated colonial rage against a broader anti-colonial mobilisation.

THE SINS OF THE GREAT-GRANDFATHER: THE ROWLATT ACT AND THE AMRITSAR MASSACRE

Justin Rowlatt, the BBC's South Asia Correspondent, writes a reflection on the 1919 Amritsar Massacre and the 1919 Rowlatt Act, which was a precursor to the Massacre. The author is the great-grandson of Sir Sidney Rowlatt, who was responsible for the 1919 legislation.

Guilt in the Archive: Photography and the Amritsar Massacre of 1919

What role should photographic evidence play in current debates about whether or not Britain should apologise for the historic crimes of empire? This article examines the photographs that emerged from the Amritsar Massacre of 13 April 1919, considering what such documents can tell us about the relationship between atrocity and the imperial project. Colonials working in both official and unofficial capacities turned to photography in their attempt to justify this bloody twentieth-century episode. Such photography addressed colonial debates concerning the scope of moral and legal, individual and collective, and British and Indian culpability for the Massacre. It is therefore important that we attend to such visual evidence at the Massacre’s centenary, as the United Kingdom is urged to apologise for the infamous slaughter of Indian men, women, and children.

Medical Legacy of Gandhi: Demystifying Human Diseases.

Medical Legacy of Gandhi: Demystifying Human Diseases.

Fear and Loathing in Amritsar: an Intimate Account of Colonial Crisis

This essay revisits the events surrounding one of the most emblematic instances of colonial violence, namely the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, through the diary of an Englishwoman, Mrs. Melicent Wathen. Where most histories of the Amritsar Massacre emphasize British brutality and Indian suffering, Melicent’s experience was instead characterized by fear and the uncertainty of what became a headlong flight from Empire. Her diary thus offers an intimate account of colonial crisis. If we are to engage comprehensively with the lived experience of empire, the forms and functions of colonial fears and anxieties must be acknowledged; not because colonial panics were caused by real threats, which often they were not, but because they played such a crucial role in shaping colonial policies and in framing the relationship between rulers and ruled.

The Trouble with Empire: Challenges to Modern British Imperialism by Antoinette Burton (review)

Reviewed by: The Trouble with Empire: Challenges to Modern British Imperialism by Antoinette Burton Kate O'Malley (bio) The Trouble with Empire: Challenges to Modern British Imperialism, Antoinette Burton; pp. xiv + 320. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015, £22.99, £16.99 paper, $31.95, $24.95 paper. Antoinette Burton's The Trouble with Empire: Challenges to Modern British Imperialism is an exciting read for historians who have engaged with histories of dissent, and it should be required reading for historians of the British Empire more generally. The trouble with Empire, Burton tells us, is that "British imperial histories" have not been "written with dissent and disruption in the lead" (1). We have been led to believe that agents of resistance shaped the end of Empire only. Thus, a presumption of basic stability in the preceding decades of colonial rule has evolved "especially as it is popularly consumed and understood" (2). Burton questions from the outset the rise-and-fall narratives of Empire, which downplay the impact, "let alone the role, of the anticolonial movements and people on the imperial framework" (16). It is refreshing in this regard to see Ireland referenced early on, and alongside South-Asian and African movements, as Ireland often is overlooked in the historiography of British decolonization in particular. Perhaps Ireland is too close to the imperial metropole, historically too complex, and, until relatively recently, too politically sensitive a subject with which British historians of Empire could engage. Burton promises to open our ears to the drumbeat of resistance and insecurity in three specific domains—military, economic, and political—and the book is divided into chapters accordingly. In the first chapter, Burton brings us through vast geographical terrains, some familiar, others less so. We revisit sites of imperial conflict, from the Indian Mutiny/First War of Independence of 1857 and the Boer Wars to the Cattle Killing Movement in Xhosland and the campaigns against the Maori in New Zealand. Perhaps the shortest and not so sweetest of engagements for British forces came in the Anglo-Zulu War with the Battle of Isandlwala in 1879, which "was lost between 8 a.m. and 2:30 p.m." (74). These conflicts are recast for us with the help of a "close reading of British imperial battle literature and military accounting [which] suggests … a pattern of defensive engagements, local struggle and decidedly imperfect 'victory' across most of the Victorian empire" (53). Couple this with her coverage of the ferociousness of retribution and counter-insurgency (especially the brutal repression in Benares, which involved the "[g]entleman [End Page 692] executioners of young Indian boys"), and Burton successfully argues that the second half of the nineteenth century was one of the densest moments of imperial instability in the history of the Empire (61). In the second chapter, devoted to economic protest, Burton highlights a theme that also does not feature much in grand narrative accounts of modern British imperialism. It might be classified as a maligned add-on, much like women or gender in larger compendium volumes, although women appear throughout this book (understandably, given Burton's back catalogue). Yet, "ordinary colonial subjects routinely disrupted the business of empire … in a variety of ways," and, in this segment of the book, Burton harvests grains of sedition strewn across the Empire to great effect (88). From the story of the Krobo in the Gold Coast, who brought unprecedented prosperity to the indigenous community by resolving a price fixing dispute and developing ports on the river Volta, to the story of Charles Boycott going viral, apparently unconnected strikes, boycotts, and desertions are consolidated from vastly different territories whose common denominator is British colonial rule. The success of the Indian swadeshi campaign is rightly given due weight. Raj era reaction and suppression are crucial here, especially in Bengal where it resulted in significant wider politicization of local communities, or so-called radicalization, to use imperial parlance. The "hartal" or strike aspect of the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre have been restored: "a very particular mode of protest … designed to impose economic sanctions on the regular business of imperial commerce" (111). The final chapter suggests that we undertake a rereading of the winner...

British Theatre and Performance 1900-1950 by Rebecca D'Monté

British Theatre and Performance 1900-1950 by Rebecca D'Monté Brian E. G. Cook British Theatre and Performance 1900-1950. By Rebecca D'Monté. Bloomsbury Methuen, 2015. Cloth $88.00, Paper $29.95. 352 pages. Rebecca D'Monté's British Theatre and Performance 1900-1950 joins Claire Warden's British Avant Garde Theatre (2012) and other recent books in dismantling any lingering universalisms about early-twentieth-century theatre in Britain. D'Monté's book does this through its breadth: As a single-volume work, it is both encyclopedic and vast. She writes in the introduction that she wishes to continue the work done by other historians and critics, "as well as further considering the fluidity between the professional and non-professional, and the commercial and the avant-garde" (2). In the book's wake, West End-centered arguments about the decadence or the unique upper-class focus of British theatre in this period are diminished. However, the book's vastness is both a strength and a weakness, for in order to cover so much information, D'Monté does not go into tremendous depth on any one subject. The book is largely documentary, with a fine balancing of the known and lesser-known events and productions from the period, presented in a web of interconnected people, events, and performances from all over Britain. The first four chapters focus on theatre of the Edwardian, First World War, Interwar, and Second World War periods in turn. Each chapter is divided into sections exploring various aspects of theatre and performance, including popular genres of each era and explorations of how the theatre was portraying social issues like suffrage, poverty, shifting values, and broader historical and cultural events. Throughout, D'Monté often focuses on written drama, effectively charting the work of both male and female playwrights; many of the latter's plays remained unpublished and/or unproduced until years later. D'Monté also goes into greater detail about theatre in the war years (1914-18, 1939-45) than other writers, both in London and beyond, successfully broadening the available scholarship. The book also features three chapters by other scholars: Claire Cochrane contributes a new, extremely useful examination of the development of the director in British theatre, and Penny Farfan compellingly records portrayals of gender and sexuality on stage, including the transgressive performances of Maud Allan. Notably, both chapters offer brief, but welcome details of the career of director Edith Craig, whose work has largely been obscured by that of her mother, Ellen Terry, and her brother, Edward Gordon Craig. The final chapter is Steve Nicholson's remarkable survey of the various portrayals of Nazism on British stages between 1933-39, many of which were impacted by government vacillation as policies ranged from appeasement to declaration of war. The book also contains a useful chronology section for 1900-1950, which lists large historical events alongside notable theatrical events. Periodically, the encyclopedic nature of the book means that not every event or person mentioned can be fully contextualized. In several places, the discussion could have been easily clarified with brief minor clauses describing names or facts with more clarity to assist the reader in apprehending the point being made. For instance, in many places D'Monté drops names whose works are unfamiliar: "while the working classes were deemed to be in need of the morally edifying plays of the [End Page 129] West End, transfers could sometimes go in the opposite direction as well, as with the plays of Arthur Shirley and Benjamin Landeck" (13). A follow-up sentence on these artists' works would aid the reader's understanding the context of that statement. Similarly, sometimes events are mentioned which are not widely known, and D'Monté does not contextualize them: "The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 had boosted Britain's global power, but events such as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (also known as the Amritsar massacre), which took place in the same year, dented faith in the notion of colonization" (96). Again, a quick clarifying sentence defining the massacre would beef up the explanation that D'Monté is making. The book does contain at least two significant factual errors. D'Monté writes of the Labour Party...

‘Calculated to Strike Terror’: The Amritsar Massacre and the Spectacle of Colonial Violence

Research supported by the British Academy and the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship Programme