In this program, Michael Wood tells how a foreign multinational, Britain's East India Company, gradually and almost by chance took power over great swathes of the Indian subcontinent; how after the shock of the 1857 Sepoy Rebellion, the British state assumed total control over the country and transformed it into the Raj; and how the freedom movement, epitomized by Mahatma Gandhi, succeeded in delivering independence to India in 1947. The program ends by extolling the extraordinary achievements of Indian democracy over its six decades of life.

Classroom Video On Demand is distributed by Infobase for Films for the Humanities & Sciences, Cambridge Educational, Meridian Education, and Shopware. Encoded with permission for digital streaming by Infobase on December 12, 2009.

Last Invader: Britain (2:39) -- Path to Modernity (1:39) -- Decline of Mughal Empire (1:07) -- European Powers Compete (1:34) -- First Uprising (0:53) -- The Battle of Seringapatam (0:41) -- War of Profit (0:54) -- Calcutta (1:03) -- Map of India (1:38) -- Early Orientalists (1:32) -- The Sari (1:01) -- Muslim Hindu Harmony (2:33) -- First War of Independence in 1857 (0:59) -- Golden Period of India (1:58) -- Rebel Leaders Become National Heroes (1:03) -- Aftermath of Great Rebellion (1:14) -- Turning Point in 1857 (1:01) -- Freedom Movement (2:46) -- Rebels of Maharaja (1:51) -- Two Views of 1857 (1:54) -- Indian National Congress (1:49) -- Free Press and the British Raj (0:58) -- National Archive in Delhi (2:48) -- India Fights for Britain (1:27) -- Massacre at Amritsar (0:51) -- Freedom Movement (2:42) -- Nehru House (1:17) -- Partition of 1947 (2:49) -- Religious Hatred (1:45) -- Largest Migration (1:19) -- Living History (2:20) -- Triumph of Democracy (1:49) -- Future of India (2:18).