This fascinating book, based on extensive archival research in Britain
and India, examines why mutineer-rebels chose to attack prisons and
release prisoners, discusses the impact of the destruction of the jails
on British penal policy in mainland India, considers the relationship
between India and its penal settlements in Southeast Asia, re-examines
Britain's decision to settle the Andaman Islands as a penal colony in
1858, and re-evaluates the experiences of mutineer-rebel convicts there.
As such this book makes an important contribution to histories of the
mutiny-rebellion, British colonial South Asia, British expansion in the
Indian Ocean and incarceration and transportation. Coinciding with the
150th anniversary of the mutiny-rebellion, this book will be of interest
to academics and students researching the history of colonial India, the
history of empire and expansion and the history of imprisonment and
incarceration.