In 1811, an army of 10,000 British redcoats splashed ashore through the muddy shallows off Batavia (now Jakarta) to conquer the Dutch colony of Java. They would remain there for five turbulent years. Drawing on both British and Javanese archival sources, this narrative history-cum-biography explores the bloody battles and furious controversies that marked British rule in Java, and reveals the future founder of Singapore, Thomas Stamford Raffles in a shocking new light.

Tim Hannigan (London, UK) is an author and journalist specialising in Indonesia and the Indian Subcontinent. His first book, Murder in the Hindu Kush (The History Press, 2011), is a biography of the intriguing 19th-century British explorer George Hayward, and was shortlisted for the 2011 Boardman Tasker Prize.