Captives

A book about imprisonment under the British Empire - the automatic assumption would be that the subject is native people jailed by the harsh conquerors. But unsurprisingly a large number of natives rather objected to being taken over by the British during the expansion of the Empire, and this book records the successes they had in capturing a proportion of enthusiastic empire-builders in their turn. The book concentrates on these captives' stories, drawn from over 100 printed and manuscript narratives written or dictated between 1600 and the mid-19th century by British prisoners in the Mediterranean and North African region, in North America and in South and Central Asia. Some of the personal stories are vivid and moving - that of Midshipman Robert Drury, for instance, shipwrecked on the coast of Madagascar when he was 16 and held there for 15 years as a slave by the local Antandroy people: his book about his captivity became a bestseller, rivalling Robinson Crusoe. But though the individual stories are often fascinating, it is perhaps the overall impression of empire-building, its advantages and disadvantages, that comes through most clearly. The strain placed on the armed forces, for example - neither the army nor navy ever had the strength properly to police the relatively enormous tracts of country which Britain acquired - despite the official view that 'one Englishman is equal to two foreigners'. Altogether, the overall story of Empire combines with personal stories in a fascinating and revealing tapestry. (Kirkus UK)