The Last MughalIn 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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 87
William Dalrymple. DRAMATIS PERSONA E 1. The Mughals THE MUGHAL IMPERIAL FAMILY The Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II ( 1775-1862 ) The elderly Mughal ... Mirza Jawan Bakht , she worked single - mindedly to have her son the fifteenth of Zafar's ...
... Mirza Jawan Bakht . Mirza Fakhru died in 1856 , probably from cholera , but Palace gossip attributed the death to poisoning . Mirza Mughal ( 1828-1857 ) Zafar's fifth son , by a sayyida ( descendant of the Prophet ) of aristocratic ...
... Mirza Asadullah Khan- " Ghalib " ( 1797-1869 ) The greatest lyric poet in Urdu , and from 1854 - following the death of his great rival Zauq the Poet Laureate of Mughal Delhi . A mystical Sufi by inclination , self - consciously rakish ...
... Mirza Mughal- quickly made him enemies , as did his " Wahhabi ” religious views . By the middle of August his failure to dent the British defences led to his demo- tion from rebel Commander - in - Chief . General Sudhari Singh and ...
... Mirza Fakhru that entailed the Mughals leaving the Red Fort , Metcalfe died in 1853 from a digestive disorder that his doctors believed was caused by poison , which his family believed was administered on the orders of Zinat Mahal . Sir ...
Contents
29 | |
Believers and Infidels | 57 |
An Uneasy Equilibrium | 81 |
The Near Approach of the Storm | 107 |
The Sword of the Lord of Fury | 134 |
This Day of Ruin and Riot | 180 |
A Precarious Position | 213 |
Blood for Blood | 238 |
The Turn of the Tide | 282 |
IO To Shoot Every Soul | 320 |
The City of the Dead | 363 |
The Last of the Great Mughals | 412 |
Glossary | 449 |
Bibliography | 503 |
Illustrations | 533 |