From Google Books: "British conquest of India, leading to the subordination of the entire Indian economy, polity and culture to the interests of the metropolitan power, forged a nation out of a widely-felt sense of cultural oneness among the Indian people. The great Revolt of 1857 was followed by resistance to British rule almost throughout the nineteenth century. This is a moving, accessible, episodically structured and well-researched account of the freedom struggle with a grass-roots perspective."