Massacre and Retribution: Forgotten Wars of the Nineteenth Century

by Ian Hernon, Robert Rhodes James (Foreword)

Examines wars, battles, conflicts, and rebellions in the British Empire, exposing the "Pax Britannica" as a myth, and pointing out that during the 1800s there was not one month in which British troops were not engaged somewhere in the world. Describes the background and root causes of the various conflicts, military details of how they proceeded, and their aftermath. Conflicts described include the 1803-5 Kandy War in Sri Lanka, the 1865 Jamaica Rebellion, the 1845-6 Flagstaff war in New Zealand, and the 1885 Riel Rebellion in Canada. Distributed by Books International. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Genres: History

208 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1998

About the author

A print journalist since 1969 and a lobby correspondent in the Commons since 1978. Ian Hernon covered the Troubles in Northern Ireland and more mayhem in the Middle East. He ran the oldest Parliamentary news agency (now defunct) for 15 years. For the last five years he has been deputy editor of Tribune. He is the author of a dozen books including the best-selling Britain's Forgotten Wars.

Reviews

[Andrew McAuley]

Damn fine book. Of the, I think, 9 incidents covered in the book I had only even heard of 3. I very much enjoyed all of it. Ian Hernon has a great writing style; I think often journalists do tend to write better books. There is none of the pompous overuse of long words and quotes in latin which plague so many history texts. Massacre and retribution is written in plain language and peppered with interesting facts - such as that the British army didn't equip soldiers with different boots for right and left feet until 1846.

My only gripe would be that at just over 200 pages it could have been a bit longer. I don't often re-read books these days because I have too many to get through for the first time, but I'll probably re-read this one when the details begin to fade from memory.

[Walt]

The book does a nice job at bringing attention to forgotten wars. However, some of these hardly constitute war. The Falkland Islands War involved maybe 50 people. So, the selection was awkward.

I also was bothered that the author made too many apologies for the "losers." Sure, they might mutilate and eat the British; but the British burned their fields. I dislike books that go out of their way to making me feel guilty. The author spent almost as much time apologising for "native" atrocities as he did ridiculing the British.