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.