Asianism and the Fall of Empire

Offering a new global perspective on modern Indian history, Asianism and the Fall of Empire identifies the rise of Asianism in the early twentieth century as the origin and primary driving force of resistance movements that brought down the British Empire in India. Mithi Mukherjee ties together into a single sweeping narrative two contrasting, conflicting forms of anticolonialism in India: the emergence of nonviolent resistance movement under Gandhi in South Africa, and the militant movement culminating in the war on British India by the Indian National Army led by Bose in alliance with the Japanese army. Asia emerges in this breakthrough retelling as more than just a geographical category made up of disparate nations, and instead as a singular agent of change in modern world history.

Mithi Mukherjee is Associate Professor of History at the University of Colorado Boulder and author of India in the Shadows of Empire: A Legal and Political History, 1774-1950.