"1000 English men routed 55000 nawab's army"? Do you even read what you write? And who will mention that 1/3rd of Nawab's army was bought by Clive before the war began? Or the fact that Clive was fighting a losing battle till rain decide to intervene? "Routed" my ass.

When I saw the title i thought it would be funny. Turns out it was just RIDICULOUS!
And not in a good way. ( )

For readers who like their history romantically delusional and full of plucky, grown-up boys busy with the White Man's Burden:
"... the British Empire, for all its occasional missteps and outrages [sic], was a global, Shakespearean stage on which Britons could take part in a glorious adventure, playing Hotspur to headhunters and Henry V to Hottentots. If that sounds boyish, it is meant to, because the Empire was boyish; it trained boys to its tasks in schools of self-denial, cold dirty baths, bad food, long runs, stiff upper lips, the imperial languages of Greek and Latin, 'playing the game,' and embracing the ideal of service. It was an advanced form of commercial, military, and political outdoor recreation for Boy Scouts (themselves a creation of the British Empire). Young men, straight out of school, could find themselves in distant lands acting as lawgivers to primitive tribes and dangerous brigands; they were men of conservative sentiments, liberal ideals, and boyish pluck....

"Alas that day [when the British Empire is supplanted] is here, ushered in by United Nations bureaucrats, liberal internationalists, native kleptocrats, liberated Islamists, and Third World Communists and National Socialists, all of whom emerged as Europe's empires retreated. The retreat of the British Empire was not progress - either for Western Civilization or in many cases for the countries achieving independence. .... Many a Briton thought it his duty, in the words of the scholars Lewis H. Gann and Peter Duignan, 'to carry civilization, humanity, peace, good government, and Christianity to the ends of the earth.' That duty still exists for those who want it, and perhaps it would repay our study to see how Britain's imperialists actually did it." pp. 8-11

Here Crocker explains the natural revulsion of proper Englishmen to the "aboriginal Irish":
"As for the native Irish, they were regarded as the American settlers later regarded Indians - the farther away one was from them, the more sympathetic one might be to their plight; the closer one was, the more one took the view that pushing these poor, unproductive, and occasionally savage people out of the was was a simple act of advancing civilization." pg. 101

Alas, I read this for a book club. Or at least I read half of it. I never finished, because I spent too much time going to other sources for accurate accounts of events, thus learning more history but in a back-door way.