The Great Defiance: How the world took on the British Empire

Product Information

The English, and then the British, would go on to conquer many more nations in the subsequent centuries, using military and economic might to establish a global empire. That history is often told from the perspective of British success, of “progress” and “modernity”, a “great divergence” in which Britain became the most advanced and dominant power on Earth. But as David Veevers writes in his provocative new history of the empire’s first centuries, it is just as important to remember that everywhere they went the British found advanced societies offering fierce resistance to their colonisation. The history of the early modern world, he argues, looks very different from their perspective. Intriguingly, we read about the genesis of the Tea Act in terms of British ambitions in India and, with a nod towards the Boston Tea Party, Veevers leaves it at that. This is his chosen method, and certainly it would not be very plausible to classify the American rebels as ‘indigenous or non-European’ – Veevers’ slightly fuzzy but nonetheless workable definition of the ‘defiant’ societies he describes.

Non-Western polities are invariably described as powerful and sophisticated, which rather raises the question of why so many of them were conquered by a few thousand people from a pathetic little island. The role of local collaborators, indispensable to the establishment and maintenance of imperial rule, is notably absent. It would have spoiled the narrative. The ‘indigenous and non-European peoples’ (Veevers’ preferred formulation, allowing him to include the Irish), meanwhile, are his heroes. Their societies were more equitable, even ‘classless’; their cultures more vibrant; their purses heftier and their castles grander; even their empires less ‘amateur’ than those of the English. That they ‘proved remarkably resilient when challenged’ by these English upstarts was, says Veevers, a ‘good thing, too’. Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism and the Early Modern World By Jane Ohlmeyer (Oxford University Press, November 2023). Based on her landmark 2021 Ford lectures at Oxford, Ohlmeyer’s forthcoming book will re-examine Ireland’s relationship with imperialism both as a colony and as an active part of empire. Christopher Kissane

Powerfully argues...how a colonial narrative of "they came, they saw, they conquered" erases centuries of indigenous (and enslaved) agency...This wide-ranging book will hopefully shift Britain's toxic public debate about empire Irish Times

This approach does mean that some aspects of the early British imperial story are absent. The American Revolution is the most obvious of these and, indeed, there is barely any coverage of the history of the colonies on the north-eastern seaboard. Mentions are in passing, and only insofar as the region has a bearing on the rest of the narrative. Only in the chapter’s last paragraph does Veevers note, almost as an afterthought, that Dahomey’s neighbours, “who suffered conquest and enslavement”, were not exactly thrilled by all of this. That is beside the point, though. The book is, after all, meant to be “a celebration of the power wielded by those who took on the British Empire and defied its expansion”, including King Agaja and his ilk.

Watson, Little agents

Despite the impression of imperial eccentricity conjured by his name, Moon was a sober observer of the British dominion in India. He thought it had done some good and some bad things, and that its eventual demise was long overdue. Dismissed by the British government for being too sympathetic toward Indian nationalists, he later spent 14 years holding important positions within the government of independent India at the invitation of its new rulers. Despite having many reasons to do so, they did not hate British people such as Moon anywhere near so much as Veevers seems to.

Veevers starts with a bang, claiming that the British Empire, once hailed as the epitome of global domination, was actually a series of epic fails. According to Veevers, the British were like a bunch of kids playing a game of conqueror, constantly tripping over their own shoelaces and stumbling into defeat. It's hard to believe that the same British Empire that once spanned continents and boasted "the sun never sets" was actually a comedy of errors led by the Keystone Cops of colonialism, but Veevers insists on this farcical narrative with a straight face. We venture much further afield than this, including places where English/British proto-imperialism was attempted, but simply failed. These included enclaves in Java and Japan. Such intriguing accounts are, if anything, more important than the more familiar and ultimately ‘successful’ efforts in areas such as the Caribbean. The very fact that the book can operate in this way, reminding readers that these are fascinating, important, under-explored societies, again underlines his central case. Hold onto your hats, folks, because David Veevers has unleashed a riotous romp through history with his latest book, "The Great Defiance." With his trademark self-hating liberalism turned up to 11, Veevers takes readers on a sidesplitting journey through the British Empire's misadventures, painting the British as a bunch of bumbling buffoons and Indigenous and non-European people as cunning geniuses. David is Lecturer in Early Modern History. He read History at the University of Kent, where he also completed his MA and PhD in 2015. His thesis was a study of the English East India Company in South Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, exploring in particular the way in which informal social networks shaped the formation of an early modern colonial state. Maratha soldiers fighting the British at Fort Talneir during the Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817-1819). The Maratha empire had developed a sophisticated military culture that fiercely resisted British imperialism. Image: Wikimedia CommonsThat distinction between states and people is important. Dahomey’s “independence” from European powers, after all, was built through the brutal conquest of its neighbours, and by “seizing control of the trade in enslaved people for [its] own benefit”. Grouping a huge range of “indigenous and non-European power” together perhaps reinforces British imperial perspectives rather than undermining them: the common thread between the displaced Kalinago and the mighty Mughals is that they encountered the English. This is a provocative book which will ruffle feathers, perhaps among some MHM readers. But it is also an important one. While the heart of The Great Defiance is historic, presenting an alternative narrative of what is often described as the ‘First’ British Empire, its central purpose is historiographic – to demonstrate that much of the history of this period is distorted.

Veevers, D., 2017, The East India Company, 1600-1857: Essays on Anglo-Indian connection. Pettigrew, W. & Gopalan, M. (eds.). Routledge, p. 175-192 17 p. Brexit Britain is in the grip of a “history war” in which right-wing media, politicians and commentators are intent on defending the empire’s “legacy” from an academic and cultural shift towards “decolonisation”. Victorian myths about the “civilising” power of empire have been hamfistedly resurrected. While some historians prefer to ignore such politicised “debate”, Veevers is determined to take it on. Lively, engaging...the breadth of his scope, spanning four continents over three centuries and drawing on a dazzling range of scholarship and primary sources, is novel...this is history for the real world now BBC History Magazine Works of history are sometimes criticised for being insufficiently forthcoming in their arguments. No such criticism will be levelled against David Veevers’ The Great Defiance: How the World Took On the British Empire. His second book is as provocative as it is wide-ranging. Bouncing from Ireland to India, from the Caribbean Sea to the Sea of Japan, it tells the story of how the English, later the British, were resisted and evaded, outflanked and outplayed, by the peoples, kingdoms, and empires which they encountered between 1500 and 1800. These are ingredients in the mix though, rather than the central concern of Veevers. His is a multifaceted analysis, equally interested in the commercial, political, and social drivers of the events he describes. This makes for a rounder, perhaps more thoughtful overview than a strictly military history would provide.Another is modern relevance. Whatever view one takes of Veevers’ argument, it is difficult to deny that it has application not only for the corpus of early modern history, but also for modern Britain. Looked at through this lens, many of the questions that dominate British contemporary life take on a different hue. That’s no bad thing – it is history’s primary purpose. Finally, there may be a group educated in the Western tradition who accept and are not particularly surprised by the thesis, but nonetheless pause and consider its full implications. For them, and for me, this will be an important process. A deft weaving of global trade and local imperatives that is at once compelling, thought-provoking, and occasionally harrowing, The Great Defiance skillfully reorients our perspective on the received history of the earliest days of English trade and colonial ambitions and the emergent British Empire. Professor Nandini Das Of all the British villains in Veevers’ account, there is no one whose inclusion is more surprising than that of Sir Penderel Moon — a mild-mannered colonial civil servant and historian. His magnum opus, The British Conquest and Dominion of India (1989), was devoured by Veevers as an undergraduate. Now that he has achieved intellectual enlightenment, he condemns Moon for committing “a gross erasure of the people of India from his story”, relying on a quotation which does not reflect what Moon actually wrote. Veevers' writing style is a delight to behold. Each sentence is carefully crafted, effortlessly blending eloquence with accessibility. The prose carries a certain cadence, drawing readers deeper into the narrative and allowing them to visualize the grandeur and significance of historical events. Whether describing decisive battles or intimate interactions, Veevers' words evoke emotions and create a powerful connection between the reader and the subject matter.