Lloyd has written a
revisionist history of the
Jallianwala Bagh massacre entitled
The Amritsar Massacre: The Untold Story of One Fateful Day (2011), in which Lloyd tried to put the events of 1919 in their historical context, and in the publisher's description, "[dispel common myths and misconceptions surrounding the massacre and offers a new explanation of the decisions taken in 1919." Lloyd's book was written as a rebuke to both the
Indian nationalist account of the event, as well as more contemporary works like
The Butcher of Amritsar. Lloyd's narrative focusses upon the increasing
civil disorder in
Punjab after
WWI, particularly in the context of the
Rowlatt Act. In Lloyd's account, which draws heavily from the
Hunter Commission report, previous accounts of the massacre had significantly downplayed the extent of violence by Indian nationalist crowds, stating that
British officials "did not imagine the crowds in
Amritsar or think they were worse than they really were. They did not suffer from some kind of mass hysteria or information panic. They encountered violent crowds and had to deal with them as best as they could" and stating that the nationalist accounts "confuses victims with aggressors and acts as an apologist for that violence." In a brief review for
Asian Affairs,
Rosie Llewellyn-Jones described the book as "thought-provoking, engaging" and described Lloyd's portrait of
Reginald Dyer as "compelling" Far more extensive and critical were reviews from Collett and
Kim A. Wagner, both of whom had written their own accounts of the massacre. In a review for the
University of London, Wagner described the book as "a complete whitewash" and "deeply problematic, never mind poor scholarship". The book was criticised for relying on British police and official reports to the exclusion of Indian accounts, as well as failing to engage with more contemporary scholarship on post-war Punjab and colonial administration. Wagner's primary criticism, however, was that Lloyd took seriously the idea of Punjab as being in open
violent rebellion to the extent of making Dyer's decision at
Jallianwala Bagh a credible act of public security as opposed to a calculated act of punishment. Collett also pointed to several inaccuracies in Lloyd's text, such as an erroneous description of the
Baloch. Collett's criticism of the thesis that Dyer panicked was based upon four points, namely Dyer's choices prior to the order to fire, accounts by witnesses to whether he panicked, the duration of the shooting, and finally, Dyer's own words to the
Hunter Commission, and his writings later in life. == First World War trilogy ==