Book Reviews : CHANNA WICKREMESEKERA, 'Best Black Troops in the World': British Perceptions and the Making of the Sepoy, 1746-1805, New Delhi, Manohar, 2002, pp. 212

Abstract

more for us to learn about the fundamentals of the Indian army-in peace as well as in war), much could be gleaned were military historians to consider the extent to which the military informed and was in turn informed by wider questions of culture and identity. In this volume, identity was singled out as a major theme, and while a number of these essays helped to illuminate the army’s role in fashioning the collective identity of the groups from which it sought recruits (Sikhs, Punjabi Muslims, Rajputs, etc.), other opportunities were missed. For example, martial qualities were often measured in gendered terms, and gender and sexuality come to be integral elements within efforts at differentiating between racial, ethnic and status groups. Consequently, the army was a crucial arena for the production and reproduction of sexual and gender identities and boundaries, as well as racial and caste categorisations. Closer analysis of the ways in which the army enabled