The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj

Yet to read a proud collection in my library in the British India section well researched and well written work of the author read introduction and acknowledgements found intriguing

Excellent book

The print size makes it very difficult to read this book. The author does not seem to know much about India. For example, the term Anglo Indian is used in India to describe those with an English father and Indian mother. The author uses the term to describe Britishers working in India, during the colonial rule. A very disappointing book.

There still seems to be an enduring fascination with Britain's colonial history, a certain glamour and exoticism that survives despite the criticism and disapproval of the reasons for being there in the first place. This book fully exposes how little glamour and exoticism there actually was in the service of the Raj, how hard and gruelling the life of an Indian Civil Service officer (known as Civilians to distinguish them from the Army) could be, how lonely and isolating. Some men thrived, others sickened or went mad; some rose to the challenge, others were disorganised, inefficient and incompetent. Some were never promoted to the level they believed they deserved; others went all the way up to Viceroy.David Gilmour's book follows the life of an ICS Civilian from recruitment to pension, charting the rise and fall of trends and empire-building, ranging from holidays at hill stations like Sinda and Ooty, to the 'frontiers' of the North-West Provinces, Burma and Aghanistan. It looks at the kind of men attracted to the ICS, how they were chosen, what their postings involved, the different roles and stations, their leisure time and personal lives. I could have done with more of a focus on the lives of their families, particularly the women - it must have been an incredibly lonely life for a new wife or mother. But the focus in this is very much on the men, not their dependants.You wouldn't have thought a book about a civil service, even the Indian Civil Service, could be so interesting, but I thoroughly enjoyed this. Gilmour takes a very balanced approach, at no point approving of Britain's colonial past, but by the same token not condemning the men of the time by today's standards. The majority of the men in the ICS felt they were doing their very best for the people of India; some even went on to support independence. It would be unfair to dismiss all their motives as racist and self-serving, despite the inherent paternalistic oppression in the very nature of colonialism.

Marvellous picture of how British India was run. Detailed, fabulously well researched, thorough and endlessly enjoyable. Whatever one's views on the role of the British in India - and of colonialism generally - this book paints a vivid picture of an exceptional administrative service, a 'Ruling Caste', made up largely of very dedicated and hard-working men, that was in many ways benign and well intentioned and which helped make India the global player it is today.

I much enjoyed this picture of Civil Service lives in the British Raj. I'm currently trying to reconstruct the life of one of my ancestors, and this book gave me the real flavour of British lives in India.'The Ruling Caste' is extensively researched and explores the British Library's rich collection of manuscripts and government records to create a tapestry of stories from individual lives. Beautifully written,scholarly, entertaining and politically balanced,the book was only slightly marred for me by an irritatingly limited index.Other books from David Gilmour: The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling ; CurzonThe Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard KiplingCurzon

Interesting but one-sided

nostalgic history.