The Last Mughal

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Bloomsbury presents this Unabridged recording of The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple, read by Sagar Arya

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.

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.

Critics Review

Dalrymple is an outstandingly gifted travel writer and historian who excels himself in his latest work
Max Hastings, Sunday Times
Vivid . . . unmatched . . . revolutionary . . . humane . . . No previous book has delved so deeply into the history of Delhi in those days, nor painted such a vivid portrait of the late Mughal court
Sunday Telegraph
Brims with life, colour and complexity . . . outstanding . . . one of the best history books of the year
Evening Standard
Magnificent . . . shames the simplistic efforts of previous writers
Spectator
Indispensable reading on both India and the Empire
Daily Telegraph
A compulsively readable masterpiece
The New York Review of Books
Dalrymple brilliantly evokes the tense equilibrium on the eve of the Indian Mutiny and, with pace and panache, leads us to the explosion . . . A towering achievement
The Times
A book as important as it is impressive
Guardian, Books of the Year
A moving and totally engrossing account
New Statesman, Books of the Year
Dalrymple writes with a brio rare among academic historians. Here is history almost novelistic in its vividness, wonderfully embodying both our closeness to, and radical distance from, the past. Alone among his peers, Dalrymple is producing the kind of work that, in scale, ambition and style, is like an oriental version of Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Scotsman, Books of the Year
A natural-born storyteller, Dalrymple recounts the dramatic history of Mughal Delhi before, during and after the 1857 Indian mutiny with such brio and passion that it is impossible not to be won over
Sunday Times, Books of the Year
Informed throughout with poignant awareness of contemporary events. His final words are a bleak warning, and one can only hope that The Last Mughal finds its way onto the bedtime tables of current world leaders
Daily Mail
Easily Dalrymple's most ambitious, compelling and unusual book. Here are the stories of real people who populated those tumultuous times - heroes and villains, saints and debauches . . . The Last Mughal is Dalrymple's saddest and loveliest work to date
Elle
An exhaustive, deeply informed and compelling new book, bulging with scholarship. The strength of this book lies in the breadth of its quotations from unpublished primary sources. In deploying his material, Dalrymple shows he has the two essential gifts of the historian: a grasp of detail and an ability to see the big picture
Daily Telegraph
A magnificent, multi-dimensional book which shames the simplistic efforts of previous writers
Spectator
A riveting account . . . The animating spirit of the book is Delhi itself
Economist
He has found a wonderful treasure trove of documents . . . thanks to these rich sources The Last Mughal brims with life, colour and complexity, and it will make the most jingoistic reader think again about the effects of British rule on India . . . This is an outstanding book, distinguished by its painstaking research, narrative flair and imaginative sympathy. Dalrymple writes with a burning anger, but never loses sight of his obligation to the reader. The result is one of the best history books of the year
Evening Standard
Dalrymple has produced a finely balanced account of the greatest armed challenge faced by any European power during the 19th century, and of the bloodthirsty revenge the British exacted on those who dared to rise up against them
Financial Times
Dalrymple is an outstandingly gifted travel writer and historian who excels himself in his latest work . . . This is an angry book as well as a very good one
Sunday Times
Brilliantly nuanced . . . Dalrymple has here written an account of the Indian mutiny such as we have never had before, of the events leading up to it and of its aftermath, seen through the prism of the last emperor's life . . . he has put his finger deftly on every crucial point in the story . . . and he has supplied some of the most informative footnotes I have ever read. On top of that, he has splendidly conveyed the sheer joy of researching a piece of history, something every true historian knows
Guardian
Dalrymple's sumptuously sourced and beautifully composed narrative follows the downfall of the Mughal dynasty, and celebrates the perishable elegance of its culture in early 19th century Delhi
Independent
What marks William Dalrymple out among other contemporary historians of India is his relish for the subject. His love of the country permeates every page of this new book . . . His research has been prodigious, his enthusiasm is infectious and he is an incomparable guide. Dalrymple writes with great verve, clarity and style
Literary Review
Brilliant on the repetitive cycles of history, unashamedly drawing parallels with today, combatative on the origins of religious fundamentalism, The Last Mughal is a passionate and angry book, fuelled equally strongly by a love of India and a hatred of misrepresentation and repression
Guardian
Diligently researched and densely informative . . . Dalrymple's work laments the loss of an elegant tradition, a celebration of what was lost, the tone changing from epic to elegy and back
Independent
A skilfully written, impeccably researched history
Observer
Dalrymple tells this dramatic and tragic story with literary elegance, erudition and a wealth of new material
C. A. Bayly, Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge
Dalrymple brilliantly evokes the tense equilibrium on the eve of the Indian Mutiny, and with pace and panache, leads us to the explosion . . . Dalrymple's towering achievement in providing almost hourly detail lies in his sources. Drawing widely on Persian and Urdu manuscripts, he narrates the chaos through memoirs, letters, official reports and a sweeping understanding of Indian and Muslim cultures. Dalrymple tells the story of the British retribution with anger and horror
The Times
As evocative as Richard Cobb's depiction of Revolutionary Paris . . . There is so much to admire in this book - the depth of historical research, the finely evocative writing, the extraordinary rapport with the cultural world of late Mughal India. It is also in many ways a remarkably humane and egalitarian history. A splendid work of empathetic scholarship . . . few reinterpretations of 1857 will be as bold, as insightful, or as challenging as this
Times Literary Supplement
No previous book has delved so deeply into the history of Delhi in those days, nor painted such a vivid portrait of the late Mughal court
Sunday Telegraph
Excellent - Dalrymple's best book. Not only is it a fascinating biography of Zafar, it is a portrait of this crumbling city that Dalrymple clearly knows inside out, and confirms the author's position as the foremost expert on India of his generation
Geographical
Mesmerising, gripping and beautifully written
Good Book Guide
Narrative history at its very best . . . a gripping story seen through the eyes of the Britons and Indians who were caught up in the maelstrom. At the same time the book provides larger insights into the nature of the uprising . . . Dalrymple's account is both evocative and sensitive
The Telegraph (India)
Dalrymple is one of the greatest historical writers of our time, and this book will surely go down as his best so far
Asian Age
Extremely well researched and vividly imagined, with a keen sense of drama and a perceptive grip of character. An entire period comes alive - atmospheric and immediate, elegiac, tragic and a thumping good read
First City
Dalrymple narrates the story of Delhi's capture and fall with a rare humanity, a zest that is infectious and in a prose that is handsome, sure-footed and flowing with breezy purpose
The Hindu
A compelling, vivid account of the 1857 resistance . . . A powerfully vivid and tactile retelling
Hindustan Times
Dalrymple brings out the poignancy and pathology of a Mughal Lear with the ease and élan of a master storyteller . . . In The Last Mughal history is human drama at its elemental best
India Today
Monumental . . . sympathetic and very accomplished . . . the most meticulous work as yet on 1857 in Delhi . . . proof once again of Dalrymple's ability to write history in the most gripping manner
DNA
History at its archival yet lucid best. Dalrymple combines meticulous research with a wonderful writing style . . . a book that is not just about the past, but that has contemporary significance as well . . . educative and evocative, both enlightening and entertaining
Hindu BOOKS of the YEAR
The way history should be written: not as a catalogue of dry-as-dust kings, battles and treaties but to bring the past to the present, put life back in characters long dead and gone and make the reader feel he is living among them, sharing their joys, sorrows and apprehensions . . . Dalrymple's book rouses deep emotions. It will bring tears to the eyes of every Dilliwala
Outlook India
Deeply researched and beautifully written . . . A riveting and poignant account of the events of 1857 in Delhi
Nation
An original, important contribution to the controversies of 1857
Booklist
Dalrymple excels at bringing grand historical events within contemporary understanding
New York Times Book Review
William Dalrymple's captivating book is not only great reading, it contributes very substantially to our understanding of the remarkable history of the Mughal empire in its dying days, and also to the history of Delhi, of India, of Hindu-Muslim collaboration, and of Indo-British relations in a critically important phase of imperialism and rebellion. It is rare indeed that a work of such consummate scholarship and insight could also be so accessible and such fun to read
Amartya Sen
An extraordinarily detailed and highly readable portrait of the last tragic months [of Mughal Delhi]. It is also a lament for a lost Islamic civilisation at its most tolerant and pluralistic . . . Dalrymple brings the Uprising alive from Indian and British perspectives . . . A monumental work that breaks new ground in the study of one of the most important episodes in Indian history. Its lessons about the dangers of aggressive Western intrusion and interference in the East are as pertinent today as they were 150 years ago
The Australian

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