In the early stages of the Second World War, the vast crescent of British-ruled territories stretching from India to Singapore appeared as a massive Allied asset. It provided scores of soldiers and great quantities of raw materials and helped present a seemingly impregnable global defense against the Axis. Yet, within a few weeks in 1941-42, a Japanese invasion had destroyed all this, sweeping suddenly and decisively through south and southeast Asia to the Indian frontier, and provoking the extraordinary revolutionary struggles which would mark the beginning of the end of British dominion in the East and the rise of today's Asian world. More than a military history, this gripping account of groundbreaking battles and guerrilla campaigns creates a panoramic view of British Asia as it was ravaged by warfare, nationalist insurgency, disease, and famine. It breathes life into the armies of soldiers, civilians, laborers, businessmen, comfort women, doctors, and nurses who confronted the daily brutalities of a combat zone which extended from metropolitan cities to remote jungles, from tropical plantations to the Himalayas. Drawing upon a vast range of Indian, Burmese, Chinese, and Malay as well as British, American, and Japanese voices, the authors make vivid one of the central dramas of the twentieth century: the birth of modern south and southeast Asia and the death of British rule. 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...The battle for British Asia has been largely ignored compared to the war on the western front. It is also a history that has been overwhelmingly told in British terms. The authors deploy their intimate knowledge of the region to provide us with a very different story. Southeast Asia is a region of enormous complexity, a rich tapestry of races and cultures. As the Japanese forces carried all before them, the authors describe the way in which people were mobilised and how the various responses became powerful determinants of the final outcome. (Martin Jacques The Guardian 2005-01-22) [This] work casts new and important light on a shadowy aspect of the Second World War, which deserves to be better understood. (Max Hastings Sunday Telegraph 2004-09-12) This book looks at the waning days of the British Empire in its Asian crescent, stretching from India through Malaya and down to Singapore, as social, political, and military cataclysms shook the region during World War II. Bayly and Harper evoke a drama involving millions--'forgotten armies' of soldiers, laborers, native guerrillas, political activists, and refugees propelled throughout British Asia during the war, thus uniting what had been isolated and moribund colonial enclaves. As war engulfed these enclaves, the entire colonial society was routed, killed, or captured. This laid bare forever the myth of European mastery and transformed the way natives of the region saw themselves. The subsequent Japanese occupation inspired a deeply rooted culture of resistance and shaped the ensuing nationalist struggles for independence after the war. The authors have performed a valuable service by giving us a comprehensive, multifaceted account of these events. Both erudite and engrossing, this work is highly recommended. (Edward J. Metz Library Journal 2005-02-15) A work at once scholarly and panoramic, it is as precise in dissecting, say, the logistical problems the Japanese Army confronted during the 1944 campaign in northern Burma ('the worst defeat in Japan's military history') as it is arresting in examining such sweeping events as the 1942 trek of some 600,000 Indian, Burmese and Anglo-Indian refugees from Burma through the high passes of Assam into India, fleeing the advancing Japanese. Hundreds of monographs have examined aspects of this story, but Bayly and Harper's is the only history that matches the scope and nuance of novels like J. G. Farrell's Singapore Grip , Paul Scott's Raj Quartet , Anthony Burgess's Enemy in the Blanket , Orwell's Burmese Days, and Amitav Ghosh's Glass Palace . Their 70-page prologue is a triumph of scene setting...The ignominious British and Australian rout down the length of the Malay peninsula (the retreating soldiers sardonically adopted the theme from the Hope and Crosby movie The Road to Singapore as their marching song) and Singapore's subsequent fall have already been described, memorably, in Farrell's novel and in a host of military histories, most notably Alan Warner's Singapore 1942 , but Bayly and Harper's account is both vivid and authoritative. One of their greatest contributions lies in their stinging appraisal of the debacle. (Benjamin Schwarz New York Times Book Review 2005-04-17) Bayly and Harper's often-overlooked topic is the fate of Southeast Asia--particularly India, Burma, Malaysia and Singapore--during the war. The authors focus on the e