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. |
Contents
A Chessboard King | 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 |