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Rating: 
Summary: A Great Adventure
Review: Having read this book when it was first released in Australia last year I must say I am glad to see that it has finally been released in the United States. This book grabbed me from the first page and held my interest to the very end. This is a great adventure story, told with panache and feeling. I was captivated throughout, reading about this great man's humble beginnings though to his campaigns in India where he made the British presence, clinging to a number of small trading posts, into an Empire and then his final demise. The reader is transported to the far-flung reaches within India where Clive carved out a name for himself against the French and Indian rulers as a man of ambition and ruthless military cunning. His campaigns and battles are told within an exciting narrative that just moved along relentlessly like Clive's Army moving across the plains of India. This is a great story, a masterful piece of historical writing presented by Robert Harvey and I am sure it will be enjoyed by all that love a good history book. I would compare this book very favourably to the likes of `Cochrane: Britannia's Last Sea Wolf' by Donald Thomas. In fact I noticed that Robert Harvey also has a book on the market titled `Cochrane: The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain' which I have taken the liberty in ordering after his outstanding effort in telling the story of `Clive of India'.
Rating: 
Summary: A fabulous story, but not well edited
Review: I found Clive's history about as breathtaking as is possible to believe. Unforunately Harvey is under-served by his editor who allowed entirely too much reiteraton and recapulation so the the writing lacks continuity and drama that should have set it on fire.
Rating: 
Summary: The life of Clive
Review: It was the best material I have read on Clive, and it was a noble effort at parting the clouds of mystery that surround his life.
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Summary: Readable narrative history but not much more
Review: This book is readable and gives a good narrative history of the career of Robert Clive. It is however disappointing. The reason for the disappointment relates to the scope of the book and perhaps it is unreasonable to expect a book of its length (the text is about 380 pages) to cover a subject of such complexity in any depth. Clive was given a number of military commands when England had a number of small outposts on the Indian Coast. The armies were for protection mainly against the French who were also competing in the area. India at that time was broken into a number of independent states which each had vast armies far outnumbering the English. The men commanded by Clive were armed with smooth bore muskets and some cannon. The muskets had a slow firing rate and had a very short range. The armies he fought had some artillery. In each battle Clive was outnumbered by huge amounts. It was common for him to face odds of over ten to one in each battle. Despite the fact that he had no marked technological superiority over his opponents as later imperialists did Clive won each battle and conquered a country that was bigger than France. This book does not really explain how except to suggest that the armies he faced were not efficient combat units. Something which would in the face of what happened seem obvious. Despite the continual mystery of why Clive kept winning the book follows his campaigns and his problems with the English government. The reality is that Clive allowed the English to recover from the loss of the American Colonies and to recover as an Imperial Power. His victories unlike that of Napoleon did not fade away after a short time but allowed England to dominate India for two hundred years. He clearly was one of the most important figures of his age. Whilst readable the biography tends not to scratch the surface and give us the nuts and bolts of the process.
Rating:
Summary: A good, but limited account
Review: Whatever one thinks of the subsequent history of the British Raj, there's no denying that the life of Robert Clive is a remarkable and exciting story. As Robert Harvey states in this short biography, "few authors of fiction would have the imagination to encompass such an adventure." From Clive's unruly early days to his mysterious death, the story is astounding. This book is a good introduction to the life of Clive and the beginnings of the British Raj, but I was left with several important questions unanswered. Clive's lfe was so action-packed that condensing it into under 400 pages means that inevitably rounded analysis has to give way to mere descriptions of events. For example, why did Governor Saunders of Fort St David agree to Clive's request to strip the garrison of all but 100 men to give Clive men to attack Arcot when the plan was "irresponsible in the extreme"? And what evidence had the author for stating that Warren Hastings "was, like Clive, incredibly popular among the Indian population in his lifetime"? This exposes another weakness of this account - the Indian viewpoint is never really examined (apart from the Bengal famine, the effect of British policies on ordinary Indians is never alluded to, and the Indian Nawabs are portrayed either as unbalanced despotic bogeymen or pawns on the Europeans' chess table). What was interesting was the ambiguity of the British political establishment to Clive, although one got the feeling that they were more disturbed about the methods than the results. I short, this book is a good introduction to Clive's life, but I felt the need to read more widely on the British Raj to get a more balanced view.
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