Winds of Change

S1.E4 - Two Empires in One Grave

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British retaliation for the massacres and mutinies of 1857 is immediate and brutal. Mass executions of Indian prisoners and civilians follow the armies of reconquest, with only minimal interest in whether any of them were guilty. The leaders of the rebellion - Nana Sahib, the Rani of Jhansi, Tatya Tope, and the last Mughal, Bahadur Shah - are defeated, driven into exile, or killed in battle. But the East India Company does not survive either. The government of Queen Victoria dissolves its Indian Empire, and takes it under direct royal control as a crown colony - the British Raj.

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Thank you to my guest historians:

  • Christina Welsch, Assistant Professor of History at the College of Wooster, and author of The Company's Sword: The East India Company and the Politics of Militarism, 1644-1858 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022)
  • Kim Wagner, Professor of Imperial and Global History at King's College London, and author of The Great Fear of 1857: Rumours, Conspiracies, and the Making of the Indian Uprising (Witney: Peter Lang, 2010)
  • Mark Condos, Senior Lecturer in Imperial and Global History at King's College London, and author of The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India, 1849-1935 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017)
  • Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Chancellor and Professor of History at Ashoka University, and author of Awadh in Revolt, 1857-58: A Study of Popular Resistance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985)
  • Benjamin R. Siegel, Associate Professor of History at Boston University, and author of Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern India, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
  • Joanna Simonow, Assistant Professor at Universität Heidelberg (Heidelberg University), and author of Ending Famine in India: A Transnationalk History of Food Aid and Development, c. 1890-1950 (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2023)

    • Thank you to my guest voice actors:

    • Bry Jensen, co-host of Pontifacts.


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    Winds of ChangeBy Samuel Hume