Kathmandu, July 4 -- When discussing the early nineteenth-century foreign relations, lodged in the Nepali memory is the Anglo-Nepali War of 1814 to 1816, which ended in the Treaty of Sugauli, followed by 1857, when Rana Nepal sided with the East India Company during the Sepoy Mutiny. The years in between are largely absent from national recollection.

Marcus Potter's newly published book 'Crisis on the Northern Frontier', which is an updated version of a 2003 university dissertation, deals with these very years, particularly with the years between 1837 and 1846.

Readers learn that years after the Sugauli Treaty, in 1840, the British came close to another invasion of Nepal. And Nepal, for its part, was not completely averse to conflict ei...