?In this, our 75th year of Independence ? we needed quality literature around our great tribal freedom fighters. This book is a truly commendable start in that direction. Our first war of Independence was not in 1857. In fact, tribal mutinies against the British began at least 75 years before the 1857 revolution. These battles were fought with traditional bows and arrows and spears, and predated the reported political movement that came to the fore in the latter part of the nineteenth century.