Kim A. Wagner

Wagner is of Danish origin and has lived in the United Kingdom for over twenty years. He is named after the leading character from Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim, set in British India, and was taken to India by his parents when he was a baby. Wagner says he has visited Amritsar many times and feels that India is "in [his] blood".{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/the-many-myths-surrounding-jallianwala-bagh/cid/1689053|title=The many myths surrounding Jallianwala Bagh|last=Roy|first=Amit|date=20 April 2019|website=www.telegraphindia.com|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191207195249/https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/the-many-myths-surrounding-jallianwala-bagh/cid/1689053|archive-date=7 December 2019|access-date=25 December 2019|url-status=live}}

In 2003, under the supervision of Christopher Bayly, he gained a PhD in South Asian history from the University of Cambridge. He subsequently completed a four-year research fellowship at King's College there, followed by a two-year research associate post at the University of Edinburgh. Wagner then became a lecturer in imperial and World history at the University of Birmingham, before being employed at Queen Mary's in 2012. In 2015 he was granted a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship working with historian Dane Kennedy at George Washington University in the United States, which he finished in 2018.{{Cite web|url=https://www.qmul.ac.uk/history/people/academic-staff/profiles/wagnerkima.html|title=Professor Kim A. Wagner - School of History|website=www.qmul.ac.uk|access-date=9 December 2019|archive-date=7 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191207195224/https://www.qmul.ac.uk/history/people/academic-staff/profiles/wagnerkima.html|url-status=live}}

His book on thuggees, titled Thuggee: Banditry and the British in early nineteenth-century India, was published in 2007 and was short-listed for the History Today Book of the Year Award in 2008.{{cite book | url=https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/6973025 | isbn=9780230547179 | title=Thuggee: Banditry and the British in early nineteenth-century India | series=Cambridge imperial and post-colonial studies series | year=2007 | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan | access-date=9 December 2019 | archive-date=9 December 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191209130516/https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/6973025 | url-status=live }} He followed that up with a source book on thuggees titled Stranglers and Bandits: A Historical Anthology of Thuggee (2009).{{cite journal | url=https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911810002743 | doi=10.1017/S0021911810002743 | title=Stranglers and Bandits: A Historical Anthology of Thuggee. Edited by Kim A. Wagner. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009. Xvi, 318 pp. $49.95 (Cloth) | year=2010 | last1=Humes | first1=Cynthia Ann | journal=The Journal of Asian Studies | volume=69 | issue=4 | pages=1294–1295 | s2cid=163149750 }}

In 2014, he was approached by the owners of the Lord Clyde pub in Kent, who wished to dispose of a skull in their possession. An accompanying note revealed the skull to be that of sepoy Alum Bheg of the Bengal Regiment, who, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, was executed in 1858 by being blown from a cannon in Sialkot. Wagner had the skull examined at the Natural History Museum in London, who confirmed its likely authenticity. Subsequently, with no known descendants of Bheg and with no official documents mentioning him, Wagner pieced together the story of the skull using letters written by the relatives and friends of Bheg's victims, in addition to other primary material in England and India.{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43616597|title=The Indian mutineer's skull found in a UK pub|last=Biswas|first=Soutik|date=5 April 2018|work=BBC News|access-date=13 December 2019|language=en-GB|archive-date=29 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201129203732/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43616597|url-status=live}} The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857 was completed and published in 2017.{{Cite journal|last=Llewellyn-Jones|first=Rosie|date=3 July 2018|title=Kim A. Wagner. The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857|journal=Asian Affairs|volume=49|issue=3|pages=538–540|doi=10.1080/03068374.2018.1487717|s2cid=165809495|issn=0306-8374}}{{Cite journal|last=Bender|first=Jill C.|date=January 2019|title=Kim A. Wagner. The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 288. $29.95 (cloth).|journal=Journal of British Studies|language=en|volume=58|issue=1|pages=253–254|doi=10.1017/jbr.2018.232|s2cid=150442558 |issn=0021-9371}}[http://www.dover-kent.com/lord-clyde-walmer.html Lord Clyde] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191207195306/http://www.dover-kent.com/lord-clyde-walmer.html |date=7 December 2019 }}, Dover Kent Archives, 25 July 2019. Retrieved 13 December 2019.{{Cite journal|last=Newsinger|first=John|date=1 July 2019|title=The Skull of Alum Bheg: the life and death of a rebel of 1857 by Kim A. Wagner|journal=Race & Class|language=en|volume=61|issue=1|pages=110–111|doi=10.1177/0306396818801216|s2cid=198664160|issn=0306-3968}}{{subscription required}} Wagner later expressed a wish for the skull to be repatriated back to India to be "buried in a respectful manner".

His book, Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre (2019), describes how the Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre was a result of a British fear of another Indian rebellion of 1857.{{Cite journal|last=Newsinger|first=John|date=1 October 2019|title=Review: Amritsar 1919: an empire of fear and the making of a massacre by Kim A. Wagner, Britain's Pacification of Palestine: the British Army, the colonial state, and the Arab Revolt 1936–1939 by Matthew Hughes|journal=Race & Class|language=en|volume=61|issue=2|pages=110–114|doi=10.1177/0306396819871426|issn=0306-3968|doi-access=free}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/april-2019/reexamining-amritsar-does-the-historic-massacre-of-1919-warrant-an-apology|title=Reexamining Amritsar {{!}} Perspectives on History {{!}} AHA|last=Agarwal|first=Kritika|date=9 April 2019|website=www.historians.org|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190426175336/https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/april-2019/reexamining-amritsar-does-the-historic-massacre-of-1919-warrant-an-apology|archive-date=26 April 2019|access-date=19 December 2019|url-status=live}} With the book, Wagner aimed to dispel what he saw as myths about the massacre. The book was highly commended by the journalists Sathnam Sanghera and Trevor Grundy.{{Cite web|url=https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/the-british-empires-most-shameful-day|title=The British Empire's most shameful day|last=Grundy|first=Trevor|date=21 March 2019|website=www.politicsweb.co.za|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190324190051/http://politicsweb.co.za/opinion/the-british-empires-most-shameful-day|archive-date=24 March 2019|access-date=12 December 2019|url-status=live}}

Both Grundy and Ferdinand Mount compared Wagner's book on the massacre with The Amritsar Massacre: The Untold Story of One Fateful Day (2011) by Nick Lloyd and with Nigel Collett's The Butcher of Amritsar (2005). While Wagner emphasised that it was "brutality" in general that was the "driving principle of the Raj" rather than the personality of individuals, Mount argued that Wagner had underplayed the personality of General Dyer.{{Cite journal|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n07/ferdinand-mount/they-would-have-laughed|title=They would have laughed|author=Mount, Ferdinand|date=4 April 2019|journal=London Review of Books|issue=7|volume=41|pages=9–12|issn=0260-9592|author-link=Ferdinand Mount|access-date=13 December 2019|archive-date=6 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191206164830/https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n07/ferdinand-mount/they-would-have-laughed|url-status=live}}

• [https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230547179 Thuggee: Banditry and the British in Early Nineteenth-Century India]. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007. {{doi|10.1057/9780230590205}}, {{isbn|9781349361540}}
• [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/277205295 Stranglers and Bandits: A Historical Anthology of Thuggee]. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2009. (Editor) {{isbn|9780195698152}}
• [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1027787715 Rumours and Rebels: A New History of the Indian Uprising of 1857]. Peter Lang, Oxford, 2017. {{isbn|9781906165895}}
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZWlNDwAAQBAJ The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857]. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018. {{isbn|9780190870232}}
• [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1046462732 Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre]. Yale University Press, New Haven, 2019. {{isbn|9780300200355}}
• {{cite book |title=Massacre in the Clouds |date=2024-05-07 |publisher=Public Affairs |isbn=978-1-5417-0149-6 |publication-place=New York, NY |oclc=on1396550857}} {{cite web |last=Szalai |first=Jennifer |date=2024-05-15 |title=Book Review: ‘Massacre in the Clouds,’ by Kim A. Wagner |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/books/review/massacre-in-the-clouds-kim-a-wagner.html |access-date=2024-10-30 |website=The New York Times}}{{Cite web |last=Donoghue |first=Steve |date=2024-05-21 |title=Massacre in the Clouds by Kim Wagner |url=https://openlettersreview.com/posts/massacre-in-the-clouds-by-kim-wagner |access-date=2024-10-30 |website=Open Letters Review |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=‘Massacre in the Clouds’ by Kim A. Wagner review {{!}} History Today |url=https://www.historytoday.com/archive/review/massacre-clouds-kim-wagner-review |access-date=2024-10-30 |website=www.historytoday.com}}

• "Expanding Bullets and Savage Warfare", History Workshop Journal, Issue 88 (Autumn 2019), pp. 281–287. {{doi|10.1093/hwj/dbz044}}
• [https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/1224 "Review of Nicholas Lloyd's The Amritsar Massacre: The Untold Story of One Fateful Day"], (review no. 1224).
• {{Cite web |last=Wagner |first=Kim A. |date=2024-06-17 |title=A Notorious Photograph From a US Massacre in the Philippines Reveals an Ugly Truth |url=https://newlinesmag.com/argument/a-notorious-photograph-from-a-us-massacre-in-the-philippines-reveals-an-ugly-truth/ |access-date=2024-10-30 |website=New Lines Magazine |language=en}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QdTKUj8AAAAJ&hl=en Kim A. Wagner at Google Scholar]
• [https://qmul.academia.edu/KimAWagner Kim A. Wagner at Academia.edu]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO-Uws-5csc An insight into Jallianwala Bagh with Dr Kim Wagner]

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Category:Living people

Category:20th-century Danish historians

Category:21st-century Danish historians

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Historians of India

Category:Historians of the British Empire

Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge

Category:Academics of Queen Mary University of London

Category:Danish emigrants to the United Kingdom