Prender's Progress: A Soldier In India, 1931-1947

by John Prendergast

Prender's Progress is a memoir, the story of one of a vanishing breed of men., the remnants of the old Indian Army. Perceptive, affectionate, and often wildly funny, the book admirably recaptures the spirit of India in pre-Partition days.

Born the son of an Indian Army general, Prender enjoyed an idyllic childhood in and around the cantonments of his father's stations. After schooling in England, he returned to India and began soldiering in 1931. He served on the North-West Frontier and in Waziristan with the Frontier Scouts. In 1940, he went to Norway to fight the Germans and later returned to India to raise an irregular force of Frontier tribesmen to fight the Japanese. He fought in Burma until the very end and, lastly, served until Partition, the greatest muddle of them all. For Prender it was the end of a long and honorable association with a people he admired and a country he loved.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

John Prendergast is a human rights activist and best-selling author who has worked for peace in Africa for over 25 years. He is the co-founder of the Enough Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity affiliated with the Center for American Progress. John has worked for the Clinton White House, the State Department, two members of Congress, the National Intelligence Council, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has been a Big Brother for over 25 years, as well as a youth counselor and a basketball coach.

John is the author or co-author of ten books. His forthcoming book, Unlikely Brothers, due in May 2011, is a dual memoir co-authored with his first little brother in the Big Brother program. His previous two books were co-authored with Don Cheadle: Not On Our Watch, a New York Times bestseller and NAACP non-fiction book of the year, and The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes.

(Taken from Prendergast's Enough Project bio)