Last Mughal

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The Last Mughal

Author : William Dalrymple
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1408806886
Total Pages : 819 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Mughal by : William Dalrymple

Download or read book The Last Mughal written by William Dalrymple and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2009-08-17 with total page 819 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE DUFF COOPER MEMORIAL PRIZE | LONGLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 'Indispensable reading on both India and the Empire' Daily Telegraph 'Brims with life, colour and complexity . . . outstanding' Evening Standard 'A compulsively readable masterpiece' Brian Urquhart, The New York Review of Books A stunning and bloody history of nineteenth-century India and the reign of the Last Mughal. In May 1857 India's flourishing capital became the centre of the bloodiest rebellion the British Empire had ever faced. Once a city of cultural brilliance and learning, Delhi was reduced to a battered, empty ruin, and its ruler – Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last of the Great Mughals – was thrown into exile. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj's Stalingrad: a fight to the death between two powers, neither of whom could retreat. The Last Mughal tells the story of the doomed Mughal capital, its tragic destruction, and the individuals caught up in one of the most terrible upheavals in history, as an army mutiny was transformed into the largest anti-colonial uprising to take place anywhere in the world in the entire course of the nineteenth century.

Last Mughal (P/B)

Author : William Dalrynple
Publisher : Penguin Books India
ISBN 13 : 9780143102434
Total Pages : 644 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis Last Mughal (P/B) by : William Dalrynple

Download or read book Last Mughal (P/B) written by William Dalrynple and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2007 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner Of The Duff Cooper Prize For History 2007 Bahadur Shah Zafar Ii, The Last Mughal Emperor, Was A Mystic, A Talented Poet, And A Skilled Calligrapher, Who, Though Deprived Of Real Political Power By The East India Company, Succeeded In Creating A Court Of Great Brilliance, And Presided Over One Of The Great Cultural Renaissances Of Indian History. In 1857 It Was Zafar S Blessing To A Rebellion Among The Company S Own Indian Troops That Transformed An Army Mutiny Into The Largest Uprising The British Empire Ever Had To Face. The Last Mughal Is A Portrait Of The Dazzling Delhi Zafar Personified, And The Story Of The Last Days Of The Great Mughal Capital And Its Final Destruction In The Catastrophe Of 1857. Shaped From Groundbreaking Material, William Dalrymple S Powerful Retelling Of This Fateful Course Of Events Is An Extraordinary Revisionist Work With Clear Contemporary Echoes. It Is The First Account To Present The Indian Perspective On The Siege, And Has At Its Heart The Stories Of The Forgotten Individuals Tragically Caught Up In One Of The Bloodiest Upheavals In History.

The Last Mughal (Hindi)

Author : William Dalrymple
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9385436244
Total Pages : 610 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (854 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Mughal (Hindi) by : William Dalrymple

Download or read book The Last Mughal (Hindi) written by William Dalrymple and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-06 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a dark evening in November 1862, a cheap coffin is buried in eerie silence. There are no lamentations or panegyrics, for the British Commissioner in charge has insisted, 'No vesting will remain to distinguish where the last of the Great Mughals rests.' This Mughal is Bahadur Shah Zafar II, one of the most tolerant and likeable of his remarkable dynasty who found himself leader of a violent and doomed uprising. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj's Stalingrad, the end of both Mughal power and a remarkable culture.

The Mughal World

Author : Abraham Eraly
Publisher : Penguin Books India
ISBN 13 : 9780143102625
Total Pages : 440 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (26 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mughal World by : Abraham Eraly

Download or read book The Mughal World written by Abraham Eraly and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2007 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It Is Hard To Imagine Anyone Succeeding More Gracefully In Producing A Balanced Overview Than Abraham Eraly William Dalrymple, Sunday Times, London In The Mughal World Abraham Eraly Continues His Fascinating Chronicle Of The Grand Saga Of The Mughal Empire. In Emperors Of The Peacock Throne He Gave Us The Story Of The Lives And Achievements Of The Great Mughal Emperors; In This Book, He Looks Beyond The Momentous Historical Events To Portray, In Precise And Vivid Detail, The Agony And Ecstasy Of Life In Mughal India. Combining Scholarly Objectivity With Artful Storytelling The Author Presents A Lively Panorama Of The Mughal World Emperors And Nobles At Work And Play; Harem Life; The Profligacy And Extravagance Of The Ruling Class Juxtaposed With The Stark Wretchedness Of The Common People. Meticulously Researched And Lucidly Narrated The Mughal World Offers Rare Insights Into The State Of The Empire S Economy, Religious Policies, The Mughal Army And Its Tactics, And The Glories Of Mughal Art, Architecture, Literature And Music.

The Life & Poetry of Bahadur Shah Zafar

Author : Aslam Parvez
Publisher : Hay House, Inc
ISBN 13 : 9385827480
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (858 download)

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Book Synopsis The Life & Poetry of Bahadur Shah Zafar by : Aslam Parvez

Download or read book The Life & Poetry of Bahadur Shah Zafar written by Aslam Parvez and published by Hay House, Inc. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An absorbing, authentic and exemplary chronicle – studded with rare nuggets of information and enthralling anecdotes – of one of the most tragic figures of history who was witness to the end of a glorious dynasty First published in Urdu in 1986, this ‘labour of love’ brings alive the life and poetry of Bahadur Shah Zafar (1775 to 1862), the last Mughal Emperor. Zafar presided over a crucial period in Indian history when the country was subjugated and became a colony of the fast-expanding British Empire. Aslam Parvez’s account – with its wealth of detail – stands out in the manner in which it weaves together the strands of the political, the personal, the cultural and the literary aspects of a bygone era. This work is as much about the 1857 Rebellion as it is about Bahadur Shah Zafar, the reluctant leader of the rebels. The pages also evoke the captivating ambience of a period when formidable poets such as Mirza Ghalib, Sheikh Muhammad Ibrahim Zauq and Momin Khan Momin, apart from Zafar himself, came up with one creative gem after another. The author also provides a vivid and fascinating picture of Delhi during the last days of its cultural and literary splendour as the Mughal capital and as a custodian of Urdu literature and poetry. Finally, he recounts, in a touching manner, how Zafar spent his last days in Rangoon (where he had been exiled by the British) – a lonely and forgotten individual – far away from his beloved Delhi and from the trappings of his empire.

Last Spring

Author : Abraham Eraly
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 9351181286
Total Pages : 962 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (511 download)

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Book Synopsis Last Spring by : Abraham Eraly

Download or read book Last Spring written by Abraham Eraly and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2000-10-14 with total page 962 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 1525, Zahir-Ud-Din Babur, Descended From Chengiz Khan And Timur Lenk, Crossed The Indus River Into The Punjab With A Modest Army And Some Cannon. At Panipat, Five Months Later He Fought The Most Important Battle Of His Life And Routed The Mammoth Army Of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, The Afghan Ruler Of Hindustan. Mughal Rule In India Had Begun. It Was To Continue For Over Three Centuries, Shaping India For All Time. In This Monumental And Definitive Biography Of The Great Mughals, Abraham Eraly Reclaims The Right To Set Down History As A Chronicle Of Flesh-And-Blood People. Bringing To His Task The Objectivity Of A Master Scholar And The High Imagination Of A Master Story-Teller, He Recreates The Lives Of Babur, The Intrepid Pioneer; The Dreamer Humayun; Akbar, The Greatest And Most Enigmatic Of The Mughal Emperors; Jehangir And Shah Jahan, The Aesthetes; And The Dour And Determined Aurangzeb. Because Of Their Charisma And Leadership The Mughal Empire Survived And Grew Despite The Chaos And Contradictions It Carried Within Itself-The Tumult Of Unending Wars, The Baffling Opulence Of The Ruling Elite And The Desperate Misery Of The Masses, The Brutal Feuds In The Royal Families, As Also The Flowering Of Art And Culture. Without Ever Sacrificing Authenticity And Academic Accuracy, Eraly Has Written A Stirring And Vivid Account Of One Of The World S Greatest Empires That Will Be Savoured By The General Reader And The Serious Scholar Alike For Years To Come.

White Mughals

Author : William Dalrymple
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101098120
Total Pages : 540 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis White Mughals by : William Dalrymple

Download or read book White Mughals written by William Dalrymple and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-04-27 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: White Mughals is the romantic and ultimately tragic tale of a passionate love affair that crossed and transcended all the cultural, religious and political boundaries of its time. James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad when in 1798 he glimpsed Kahir un-Nissa—'Most excellent among Women'—the great-niece of the Nizam's Prime Minister and a descendant of the Prophet. Kirkpatrick had gone out to India as an ambitious soldier in the army of the East India Company, eager to make his name in the conquest and subjection of the subcontinent. Instead, he fell in love with Khair and overcame many obstacles to marry her—not least of which was the fact that she was locked away in purdah and engaged to a local nobleman. Eventually, while remaining Resident, Kirkpatrick converted to Islam, and according to Indian sources even became a double-agent working for the Hyderabadis against the East India Company. It is a remarkable story, involving secret assignations, court intrigue, harem politics, religious and family disputes. But such things were not unknown; from the early sixteenth century, when the Inquisition banned the Portuguese in Goa from wearing the dhoti, to the eve of the Indian mutiny, the 'white Mughals' who wore local dress and adopted Indian ways were a source of embarrassments to successive colonial administrations. William Dalrymple unearths such colourful figures as 'Hindoo Stuart', who travelled with his own team of Brahmins to maintain his temple of idols, and who spent many years trying to persuade the memsahibs of Calcutta to adopt the sari; and Sir David Ochterlony, Kirkpatrick's counterpart in Delhi, who took all thirteen of his wives out for evening promenades, each on the back of their own elephant. In White Mughals, William Dalrymple discovers a world almost entirely unexplored by history, and places at its centre a compelling tale of love, seduction and betrayal. It possesses all the sweep and resonance of a great nineteenth-century novel, set against a background of shifting alliances and the manoeuvring of the great powers, the mercantile ambitions of the British and the imperial dreams of Napoleon. White Mughals, the product of five years' writing and research, triumphantly confirms Dalrymple's reputation as one of the finest writers at work today.

The Emperor Who Never Was

Author : Supriya Gandhi
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674243919
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis The Emperor Who Never Was by : Supriya Gandhi

Download or read book The Emperor Who Never Was written by Supriya Gandhi and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive biography of the eldest son of Emperor Shah Jahan, whose death at the hands of his younger brother Aurangzeb changed the course of South Asian history. Dara Shukoh was the eldest son of Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, best known for commissioning the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. Although the Mughals did not practice primogeniture, Dara, a Sufi who studied Hindu thought, was the presumed heir to the throne and prepared himself to be India’s next ruler. In this exquisite narrative biography, the most comprehensive ever written, Supriya Gandhi draws on archival sources to tell the story of the four brothers—Dara, Shuja, Murad, and Aurangzeb—who with their older sister Jahanara Begum clashed during a war of succession. Emerging victorious, Aurangzeb executed his brothers, jailed his father, and became the sixth and last great Mughal. After Aurangzeb’s reign, the Mughal Empire began to disintegrate. Endless battles with rival rulers depleted the royal coffers, until by the end of the seventeenth century Europeans would start gaining a foothold along the edges of the subcontinent. Historians have long wondered whether the Mughal Empire would have crumbled when it did, allowing European traders to seize control of India, if Dara Shukoh had ascended the throne. To many in South Asia, Aurangzeb is the scholastic bigot who imposed a strict form of Islam and alienated his non-Muslim subjects. Dara, by contrast, is mythologized as a poet and mystic. Gandhi’s nuanced biography gives us a more complex and revealing portrait of this Mughal prince than we have ever had.

The Last Mughal

Author : William Dalrymple
Publisher : Bloomsbury Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 9781408800928
Total Pages : 578 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Mughal by : William Dalrymple

Download or read book The Last Mughal written by William Dalrymple and published by Bloomsbury Paperbacks. This book was released on 2009 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a dark evening in November 1862, a cheap coffin is buried in eerie silence. There are no lamentations or panegyrics, for the British Commissioner in charge has insisted, 'No vesting will remain to distinguish where the last of the Great Mughals rests.' This Mughal is Bahadur Shah Zafar II, one of the most tolerant and likeable of his remarkable dynasty who found himself leader of a violent and doomed uprising. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj's Stalingrad, the end of both Mughal power and a remarkable culture.

The Last Mughal

Author : William Dalrymple
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 1400078334
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Mughal by : William Dalrymple

Download or read book The Last Mughal written by William Dalrymple and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008-03-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this evocative study of the fall of the Mughal Empire and the beginning of the Raj, award-winning historian William Dalrymple uses previously undiscovered sources to investigate a pivotal moment in history. The last Mughal emperor, Zafar, came to the throne when the political power of the Mughals was already in steep decline. Nonetheless, Zafar—a mystic, poet, and calligrapher of great accomplishment—created a court of unparalleled brilliance, and gave rise to perhaps the greatest literary renaissance in modern Indian history. All the while, the British were progressively taking over the Emperor's power. When, in May 1857, Zafar was declared the leader of an uprising against the British, he was powerless to resist though he strongly suspected that the action was doomed. Four months later, the British took Delhi, the capital, with catastrophic results. With an unsurpassed understanding of British and Indian history, Dalrymple crafts a provocative, revelatory account of one the bloodiest upheavals in history.

The Company Quartet

Author : William Dalrymple
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1526633426
Total Pages : 2084 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (266 download)

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Book Synopsis The Company Quartet by : William Dalrymple

Download or read book The Company Quartet written by William Dalrymple and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-19 with total page 2084 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Gorgeous, spellbinding and important' Sunday Times 'Rampaging, brilliant, passionate history' Wall Street Journal 'Magnificent ... Dalrymple has uncovered sources never used before' Guardian 'Vivid ... unmatched ... revolutionary ... humane' Sunday Telegraph ____________________________ From multi-award-winning and bestselling historian William Dalrymple, a four-book collection chronicling the extraordinary story of the rise and fall of the East India Company. We still talk about the British conquering India, but that phrase disguises a much more sinister reality. For it was not the British government that began seizing chunks of India in the mid-eighteenth century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in the city of London. Bringing together two decades of meticulous research and masterful narration, 'The Company Quartet' tells the remarkable story of how the Mughal empire, which then generated just under half the world's wealth, disintegrated and came to be replaced by the first global corporate power: the East India Company. William Dalrymple's epic, bestselling and multi-award-winning histories are now available in this magnificent paperback box set, presented in a stylish slipcase. Comprised of four individual books – The Anarchy, White Mughals, Return of a King and The Last Mughal – this essential collection spans over two hundred years of tumultuous colonial history, covert political machinations and bloody resistance. PRIZES & AWARDS: Winner of the Wolfson Prize for History Winner of the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize Winner of the Hemingway Prize Winner of the Ryzard Kapuscinski Prize Winner of the Vodafone/Crossword Book award Winner of the Scottish Book of the Year Prize Winner of the Arthur Ross Medal of the Council on Foreign Relations. Three times longlisted and once shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Winner of the Sykes Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society Winner of the President's Medal of the British Academy Finalist for the Cundil Prize for History

A Short History of the Mughal Empire

Author : Michael Fisher
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0857729764
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (577 download)

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Book Synopsis A Short History of the Mughal Empire by : Michael Fisher

Download or read book A Short History of the Mughal Empire written by Michael Fisher and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mughal Empire dominated India politically, culturally, socially, economically and environmentally, from its foundation by Babur, a Central Asian adventurer, in 1526 to the final trial and exile of the last emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar at the hands of the British in 1858. Throughout the empire's three centuries of rise, preeminence and decline, it remained a dynamic and complex entity within and against which diverse peoples and interests conflicted. The empire's significance continues to be controversial among scholars and politicians with fresh and exciting new insights, theories and interpretations being put forward in recent years. This book engages students and general readers with a clear, lively and informed narrative of the core political events, the struggles and interactions of key individuals, groups and cultures, and of the contending historiographical arguments surrounding the Mughal Empire.

The Emperors' Album

Author : Stuart Cary Welch
Publisher : Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN 13 : 0870994999
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (79 download)

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Book Synopsis The Emperors' Album by : Stuart Cary Welch

Download or read book The Emperors' Album written by Stuart Cary Welch and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 1987 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty leaves that form the sumptuous Kevorkian Album, one of the world's greatest assemblages of Mughal art. -- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

The Last King in India

Author : Rosie Llewellyn-Jones
Publisher : Random House India
ISBN 13 : 8184006306
Total Pages : 397 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last King in India by : Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

Download or read book The Last King in India written by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones and published by Random House India. This book was released on 2014-06-25 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thousands of mourners who lined Wajid Ali Shah’s funeral route on 21 September, 1887, with their loud wailing and shouted prayers, were not only marking the passing of the last king but also the passing of an intangible connection to old India, before the Europeans came. This is the story of a man whose memory continues to divide opinion today. Was Wajid Ali Shah, as the British believed, a debauched ruler who spent his time with fiddlers, eunuchs and fairies, when he should have been running his kingdom? Or, as a few Indians remember him, a talented poet whose songs are still sung today, and who was robbed of his throne by the English East India Company? Somewhere between these two extremes lies a gifted, but difficult, character; a man who married more women than there are days in the year; who directed theatrical extravaganzas that took over a month to perform, and who built a fairytale palace in Lucknow, which was inhabited for less than a decade. He remained a constant thorn in the side of the ruling British government with his extravagance, his menagerie and his wives. Even so, there was something rather heroic about a man who refused to bow to changing times, and who single-handedly endeavoured to preserve the etiquette and customs of the great Mughals well into the period of the British Raj. India’s last king Wajid Ali Shah was written out of the history books when Awadh was annexed by the Company in February 1856. After long years of painstaking research, noted historian Rosie Llewellyn-Jones revives his memory and returns him his rightful place as one of India’s last great rulers.

Indian Summer

Author : Alex Von Tunzelmann
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780312428112
Total Pages : 516 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (281 download)

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Book Synopsis Indian Summer by : Alex Von Tunzelmann

Download or read book Indian Summer written by Alex Von Tunzelmann and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-09-30 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extraordinary story of romance, history, and divided loyalties--set against the backdrop of one of the most dramatic events of the 20th century--"Indian Summer" reveals how Britain ceased to be a superpower after it lost India as a colony.

Shah Jahan

Author : Fergus Nicoll
Publisher : Penguin Books India
ISBN 13 : 0670083038
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Shah Jahan by : Fergus Nicoll

Download or read book Shah Jahan written by Fergus Nicoll and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2009 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Khurram Shah Jahan, a title meaning King of the World , ruled the Mughal Empire from 1628 to 1659. His reign marked the cultural zenith of the Mughal dynasty: a period of multiculturalism, poetry, fine art and stupendous architecture. His legacy in stone embraces not only the Taj Mahal the tomb of his beloved second wife, Anjumand Mumtaz Mahal but fortresses, mosques, gardens, carvanserais and schools. But Shah Jahan was also a ruthless political operator, who only achieved power by ordering the murder of two brothers and at least six other relatives, one of them the legitimately crowned Emperor Dawar Baksh. This is the story of an enlightened despot, a king who dispensed largesse to favoured courtiers but ignored plague in the countryside. Fergus Nicholl has reconstructed this intriguing tale from contemporary biographies, edicts and correspondence. He has also traveled widely through India and Pakistan to follow in Shah Jahan's footsteps and put together an original portrait that challenges many established legends to bring the man and the emperor to life.

Return of a King

Author : William Dalrymple
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307958299
Total Pages : 494 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (79 download)

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Book Synopsis Return of a King by : William Dalrymple

Download or read book Return of a King written by William Dalrymple and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From William Dalrymple—award-winning historian, journalist and travel writer—a masterly retelling of what was perhaps the West’s greatest imperial disaster in the East, and an important parable of neocolonial ambition, folly and hubris that has striking relevance to our own time. With access to newly discovered primary sources from archives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and India—including a series of previously untranslated Afghan epic poems and biographies—the author gives us the most immediate and comprehensive account yet of the spectacular first battle for Afghanistan: the British invasion of the remote kingdom in 1839. Led by lancers in scarlet cloaks and plumed helmets, and facing little resistance, nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured through the mountain passes from India into Afghanistan in order to reestablish Shah Shuja ul-Mulk on the throne, and as their puppet. But after little more than two years, the Afghans rose in answer to the call for jihad and the country exploded into rebellion. This First Anglo-Afghan War ended with an entire army of what was then the most powerful military nation in the world ambushed and destroyed in snowbound mountain passes by simply equipped Afghan tribesmen. Only one British man made it through. But Dalrymple takes us beyond the bare outline of this infamous battle, and with penetrating, balanced insight illuminates the uncanny similarities between the West’s first disastrous entanglement with Afghanistan and the situation today. He delineates the straightforward facts: Shah Shuja and President Hamid Karzai share the same tribal heritage; the Shah’s principal opponents were the Ghilzai tribe, who today make up the bulk of the Taliban’s foot soldiers; the same cities garrisoned by the British are today garrisoned by foreign troops, attacked from the same rings of hills and high passes from which the British faced attack. Dalryrmple also makes clear the byzantine complexity of Afghanistan’s age-old tribal rivalries, the stranglehold they have on the politics of the nation and the ways in which they ensnared both the British in the nineteenth century and NATO forces in the twenty-first. Informed by the author’s decades-long firsthand knowledge of Afghanistan, and superbly shaped by his hallmark gifts as a narrative historian and his singular eye for the evocation of place and culture, The Return of a King is both the definitive analysis of the First Anglo-Afghan War and a work of stunning topicality.