How can we explain Britain’s long rule in India beyond the clichés of ‘imperial’ versus ‘nationalist’ interpretations? In this new history, Roderick Matthews tells a more nuanced story of ‘oblige and rule’, the foundation of common purpose between colonisers and powerful Indians. Peace, Poverty and Betrayal argues that this was more a state of being than a system: British policy was never clear or consistent; the East India Company went from a manifestly incompetent ruler to, arguably, the world’s first liberal government; and among British and Indians alike there were both progressive and conservative attitudes to colonisation. Matthews skilfully illustrates that this very diversity and ambiguity of British–Indian relations also drove the social changes that led to the struggle for independence. Skewering the simplistic binaries that often dominate the debate, Peace, Poverty and Betrayal is a fresh and elegant history of British India.