Publisehd by Purnell Book Services Ltd, Oxon, 1977. Slight bumping at top right corners, minor secondhand wear to dustjacket extremities, minor foxing at page edges.

'Clive - that man not born for a desk - that heaven-born general!'

...so William Pitt the elder described the subject of this penetrating biography, the most challengly enigmatic figure in the history of British India.

It was Robert Clive who, through a series of astonishing military victories, brought Bengal into the Empire and thus assured the steady extension od British rule in India.

Yet, as Michael Edwardes shows, he was not so much a military genius as a brilliant opportunist who understood the game of Indian politics best played by Indian rules.