Particularize Books During White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India
Original Title: | White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India |
ISBN: | 014200412X (ISBN13: 9780142004128) |
Edition Language: | English |
Literary Awards: | Wolfson History Prize (2003), Kiriyama Prize Nominee for Nonfiction (2004), Hessell-Tiltman Prize Nominee (2003) |
William Dalrymple
Paperback | Pages: 580 pages Rating: 3.94 | 3892 Users | 320 Reviews
Specify About Books White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India
Title | : | White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India |
Author | : | William Dalrymple |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 580 pages |
Published | : | April 27th 2004 by Penguin Books (first published March 29th 2002) |
Categories | : | History. Cultural. India. Nonfiction. Biography. Historical. Asia. Travel |
Representaion In Pursuance Of Books White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India
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.
Rating About Books White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India
Ratings: 3.94 From 3892 Users | 320 ReviewsEvaluate About Books White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India
This is a scholarly work of Indian history, extensively researched and written with a passion and a nostalgia for a not so distant past when there was wholesale interracial sexual exploration and substantial cultural assimilation between Indians and the British in India. Author Dalrymple says that till the early years of the 19th century, there was an Indian conquest of the European imagination when one in three British residents in India acquired Indian women as wives or mistresses andVintage Dalrymple. If anyone ever doubted that he was a history writer par excellence, this was his blockbuster of an answer. One of my all time favourite writers at the top of his game. This is how narrative non-fiction is done. Period.
A very painstaking and detailed history of late-Moghul India, specifically Asaf Jahi Hyderabad, and the peculiar Anglo-Indian culture which developed therein. The author has done an incredible job of synthesizing a huge array of historical documents (much like he did with The Last Mughul, but perhaps even more impressively) to paint a portrait of what life was like at this time. He also paints an interesting picture of English views towards India and vice versa, and how they evolved over time
Only for somebody with an eye for detail. And I mean ALOT of detail. I have to give credit to the author for clearly spending so much time and effort researching, and for transforming random bits of letters and pieces of history into an almost novel-like story.
Couldn''t finish..too tedious and detailed.
Oh, I loved this book. I could hardly put it down. I confess I know very little about the years before the Raj, before the British Crown took over India from the East India Company, so this book came as a delightful, entrancing revelation. During the years of the British Raj, the lines - social, political, religious, caste and class - dividing British from Indian were very clearly defined and adhered to, but this was not the case in the early years of the East India Company. Many officials had
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