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

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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.

Join us for this thought-provoking journey into one of the most critical periods in global history, offering a comprehensive understanding of the intricate dynamics that ultimately brought World War II to its dramatic conclusion. The methodology and perspective that Veevers has adopted means that the book is not comprehensive. It proceeds through the first 300 years of British (technically English, then British) expansion chronologically, but not exhaustively. Most of these areas have been well researched and documented before, and Veevers gives full credit to the historians concerned. The book’s historical claims will spark much discussion and debate. But the historical claims are really a secondary concern. What historians ‘ultimately do’, claims Veevers, is ‘reinterpret the past’. This is a book much more concerned with ‘reinterpretation’, with an eye to the present day, than with the past itself – and, in the shadow of the culture wars, such acts of reinterpretation are morally and politically charged. In his own review of the book, Andrew Mulholland rightly frames its ‘central purpose’ as not historical , but historiographical. Throughout the book, Veevers writes with the kind of defiance that he so admires in his protagonists, offering a powerful challenge, stoutly taking up arms against – well, against what, exactly?

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

The Great Defiance is a great read. It is well researched, engagingly written and gives a great insight of the empire from an external angle. In this thought-provoking episode, we sit down with esteemed historian David Veevers to discuss his latest work, "The Great Defiance." Beyond the usual tales of empire-building and domination, Veevers sheds light on the often overlooked stories of those who stood up, resisted, and defied the might of English and later British colonizers throughout the early modern period. Together, we delve deep into the rich tapestry of histories that highlight the resilience, courage, and tenacity of communities across the globe. Through "Defiant Empire," Veevers challenges traditional narratives, pushing listeners to reconsider what they thought they knew about colonization. Join us as we embark on a journey that re-centers the experiences and voices of the defiant, and offers a fresh perspective on a chapter of history too crucial to be forgotten. Furthermore, unless your historic taste is literally confined to military matters, it is undeniably interesting. As military history enthusiasts, we are accustomed to that focus and there is nothing wrong with that in itself. But the broader causality of military conflict and indeed the tides of history are relevant. However provocative Veevers’ analysis is, it is well argued, thoroughly researched, and engagingly written. Veevers expertly weaves together a tapestry of historical accounts, personal anecdotes, and vivid descriptions, bringing to life the triumphs, struggles, and complexities of this colossal empire. The level of detail and thoroughness of research is truly commendable, underscoring Veevers' commitment to unearthing the untold stories that have shaped the British Empire's legacy. Veevers announces his bête noire in the introduction: it is those ‘bestselling books that crowd the shelves of history sections today, proclaiming how “Britain Made the Modern World”. He repeats this in the conclusion, excoriating those ‘histories that grace bookshops proclaiming how Britain “Made the Modern World”. The final words of the book flip that formula: actually, he tells us, Britain unmade the world. The concluding salvo of The Great Defiance strives to offer us an alternative to this (apparently ubiquitous) way of explaining the emergence of the modern world.

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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.

In "The Great Defiance: Unveiling the Epic Saga of the British Empire," author David Veevers has masterfully penned a non-fiction masterpiece that immerses readers in a world of captivating exploration, exceptional resilience, and awe-inspiring historical significance. With meticulous research and a gift for storytelling, Veevers has crafted a literary gem that effortlessly combines insightful analysis with an irresistible narrative drive, making it nearly impossible to put down. Very interesting. It casts a spotlight on some of the lesser-told narratives of British colonial history. It is thus a mistake to approach this as the story of the early British Empire. Rather, it is the story of those who opposed the early British Empire. So some mental gymnastics are required of those of us accustomed to Western-centric accounts; and this is its point. Lively styleA fascinating new history of the early days of the British Empire, told through the stories of the forgotten international powerhouses who aided, abetted and resisted the march of the British, by the award-winning historian David Veevers. Veevers, D., 2018, The Corporation as a Protagonist in Global History, c.1550-1750. Veevers, D. & Pettigrew, W. (eds.). Brill, Vol. 16. p. 187-210 13 p. Veevers admirably tries to render Irish names in their own language, but his linguistic hybrid only serves to highlight elided complexity. “Hugh Ó Néill” was Hugh O’Neill in English and Aodh Ó Néill in Irish, and the great earl’s shifts between those identities were key to his political career. Tyrone’s rebellion is cast as an attempt to “rid his country of every shred of English influence”, but even many contemporaries would have suggested that O’Neill’s conversion to “faith and fatherland” was about ruthless self-interest rather than “resistance”. The Irish never stopped resisting the English,” Veevers writes of the 17th and 18th centuries, but it is hard to fit O’Neill’s dynastic absolutism, the Catholic gentry’s royalist loyalism in the English civil war, and Henry Grattan’s sectarian ascendancy parliament into one narrative of national resistance (never mind the Irish soldiers and officials who helped spread the emerging British empire across the world). The vast and shifting conflicts of the 1640s in particular – the focus of recent decades of research in early modern Irish history – are almost entirely absent. 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.

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. To rewrite the history of the expansion of the British empire from the point of view of those who fought against it is an interesting conceit, though far from original. The true innovation of Veevers’ book lies in his having written it in the high-jingo style of imperialist literature that would have made many a Victorian colonial enthusiast blush — but from the point of view of the soon-to-be colonised. Published "The Company as their Lords and the Deputy as a Great Rajah": Imperial Expansion and the English East India Company on the West Coast of Sumatra, 1685-1730 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.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. 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. The answer is yes, and with relish. In a memorable chapter, Veevers recounts how King Agaja of Dahomey resisted European domination by cutting out middlemen and setting up his own slave plantations, conquering the neighbouring kingdom of Ouida to monopolise the slave trade, and charging higher prices for slaves, thereby ensuring his “economic as well as political dominance”. 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. Veevers shows that for centuries English imperialism generally struggled or failed when it came up against the interests of eastern superpowers whose commercial, political and military power often dwarfed England’s. The Ottomans in the Mediterranean and the near east, the Ming and Qing dynasties in China, the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan, and the Mughal empire in India “only tolerated the presence of the English as far as they were useful”. When they became threatening the English were often defeated or expelled. By focusing on later western hegemony, Veevers persuasively argues, we misunderstand the power politics of the early modern world.