During the "White Mutiny" of 1859-61 - the largest revolt the British army ever faced - European troops operating on behalf of the East India Company rebelled against their transfer to the service of the Queen. Taking these events as his starting point, Peter Stanley provides a portrait of emerging working-class consciousness among the troops and shows how the Europeans' collective culture impelled officers and men to challenge the authorities. In the process, he reveals how the British army, the preeminent icon of British imperialism, first maintained, then lost, control over a vast and generally hostile sub-continent.