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 Customer Reviews
Prejudiced, 08 Dec 2008
Having really enjoyed White Mughals I opened this book with anticipation which was not to be realised. In his previous book I saw Dalrymple did not like the Evangelicals who gained control of The East India Company. Here his dislike really shows. He simplisticly seems to put them as the cause of the mutiny and the encouragers of brutal reprisals. Other sources do not agree. In his Urdu book, Asbab-e Baghawat-e Hind (Causes of the Indian Mutiny),[25] Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan asserted
"I believe that there was but one primary cause of the rebellion, the others being merely incidental and arising out of it ... [T]he Natives of India, without perhaps a single exception, blame the Government for having deprived them of their position and dignity and for keeping them down ... Was not the Government aware that the Natives of the very highest rank trembled before its officers, and were in daily fear of suffering the greatest insults and indignities at their hands?" The resulting atrocities would make Cromwell in Ireland appear to be a model of military rectitude.
In his previous book there was one character whose story held the narrative together. The last emperor holds no such fascination. Despite the rave reviews my interest was not held.
A must read, 03 Sep 2008
Dalrymple produces fantastically readable books and this history of 1857 is no exception. This, is perhaps one of the few histories written I English that attempts to use Urdu sources (the other notable book that does so is Amaresh Misra's War of Civilisations). However, Dalrymple doesn't make as extensive use of Urdu and Persian sources as he could have and he is over reliant on Ghalib and one or two others to portray the social history of the mutiny. However the book is still a wonderful read bursting with information and it attempts to portray a balanced view of the events. Dalrymple interweaves contemporary sources with his text masterfully and his inclusion and discussion of some of the poetry of the time makes for a most welcome distraction. Similarly the chapter where he discusses pre-mutiny Delhi is perhaps the most powerful, at least to any Indian Muslim, and it is almost unbearable to think of the city that we have now lost.
This is by no means a full account of the mutiny, the book concentrates mainly on events in Delhi and the life of the last Emperor. However it is a most welcome addition to the mutiny literature and required reading for anyone with even a casual interest in the history of India.
Superb picture of Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857, 08 Aug 2008
This magnificent book is based on Persian and Urdu documents in India's National Archives. It vividly portrays Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857. The last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar II (1775-1862), was at the heart of a court of great brilliance, home of `the greatest literary renaissance in modern Indian history'. Architectural historian James Ferguson called his palace `the most splendid palace in the world'.
Dalrymple shows that the Uprising resulted from the Raj's growing racism and hatred, its `steady crescendo of insensitivity'. Its arrogant schemes to impose Evangelical Christianity and Christian laws on India `ushered in the most obnoxious phase of colonialism'.
The uprising was `along distinct class lines', with workers to the fore. It was the most serious armed challenge to imperialism in the 19th century, posed to the world's greatest military power. Dalrymple notes the rebels' military, strategic, administrative, logistical and financial failings and their war crimes. But the accusations of rape by the rebels were false: the official inquiry found not a single case of rape; the only mass rapes were by British soldiers after the reconquest of Delhi.
He reveals for the first time `the full scale of the viciousness and brutality of the British response', as detailed in the records of the revived British administration. "The orders were to shoot every soul. ... It was literally murder ... Heaven knows I feel no pity ..." wrote British officer Edward Vibart. Colonel A. R. D. Mackenzie boasted that we "exterminated them as men kill snakes wherever they meet them." After killing three unarmed captive princes, Captain William Hodson wrote to his sister, "I am not cruel, but I confess I did enjoy the opportunity of ridding the earth of these wretches."
Lieutenant Charles Griffiths wrote of John Clifford, the former collector of Gurgaon, "He shook my hands, saying that he had put to death all he had come across, not excepting women and children, and from his excited manner and the appearance of his dress - which was covered with blood stains - I quite believe he told the truth." Governor-General Lord Canning told Queen Victoria that the British forces displayed `a rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness'.
Palmerston said that Delhi should be deleted from the map, `levelled to the ground'. British forces sacked, looted and emptied Delhi and massacred great swathes of its people. Much of the palace and its surrounding areas were razed. Most of its leading inhabitants were killed or transported to die in the Raj's new Andaman Islands camp for 10,000 prisoners. As far as the Mughal elite were concerned, the British response was `approaching a genocide' and `would today be classified as grisly war crimes'.
Dalrymple sums up, "That massacre of the inhabitants of Delhi, commanded and justified in the eyes of Victorian Evangelicals by their reading of the Christian scriptures. ... `In the city no one's life was safe,' wrote Muin ud-Din Husain Khan. `All able-bodied men who were seen were taken for rebels and shot.' Ghalib, who had disliked the sepoys from the beginning, was now no less horrified by the barbarity of the returning British. `The victors killed all whom they found on the streets,' he wrote in Dastanbuy. `When the angry lions entered the town, they killed the helpless and weak and they burned their houses. Mass slaughter was rampant and streets were filled with horror. It may be that such atrocities always occur after conquest.'"
The Last Mughal's Pollyanna, 23 Jan 2008
The first rule of history is not to take sides, one that William Dalrymple breaks almost on the first page.
Attempting to replace the existing foreign ruling class of India with themselves, the British caused resentment that boiled over in 1857 into a full scale uprising. As the British and their Indian allies tried to put down the uprising both sides were the victims of, and the perpetrators of massacres, and both had their heroes and their villains.
Sadly Dalrymple undermines his detailed research by almost ignoring the massacres of Europeans and Christian converts and the culpability of the Mughal court in them while reporting in detail any British wrongdoing.
This is a good book ruined by the author's prejudices.
the last mughal, 23 Jan 2008
I have now read every single book ever published by William Dalrymple. I would be hard put to name a favourite as each one of them is something of a masterpiece in its own right. The Last Mughal must rate among the very best of Dalrymple's work and indeed must rank as one of the finest on the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Most accounts of the Mutiny are centred around the British forces gathered outside the walls of Delhi. This book gives a unique insight into what was happening inside the walls in the weeks and months leading up to the British invasion and the aftermath.
Dalrymple's writing of history is, in a sense, unique. The Last Mughal reads like a rivetting thriller without ever compromising on fact or scholarship. The author has a profound appreciation of his subject. For anyone with even a passing interest in Indian or British colonial history, a must read.
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Customer Reviews
Prejudiced, 08 Dec 2008
Having really enjoyed White Mughals I opened this book with anticipation which was not to be realised. In his previous book I saw Dalrymple did not like the Evangelicals who gained control of The East India Company. Here his dislike really shows. He simplisticly seems to put them as the cause of the mutiny and the encouragers of brutal reprisals. Other sources do not agree. In his Urdu book, Asbab-e Baghawat-e Hind (Causes of the Indian Mutiny),[25] Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan asserted
"I believe that there was but one primary cause of the rebellion, the others being merely incidental and arising out of it ... [T]he Natives of India, without perhaps a single exception, blame the Government for having deprived them of their position and dignity and for keeping them down ... Was not the Government aware that the Natives of the very highest rank trembled before its officers, and were in daily fear of suffering the greatest insults and indignities at their hands?" The resulting atrocities would make Cromwell in Ireland appear to be a model of military rectitude.
In his previous book there was one character whose story held the narrative together. The last emperor holds no such fascination. Despite the rave reviews my interest was not held.
A must read, 03 Sep 2008
Dalrymple produces fantastically readable books and this history of 1857 is no exception. This, is perhaps one of the few histories written I English that attempts to use Urdu sources (the other notable book that does so is Amaresh Misra's War of Civilisations). However, Dalrymple doesn't make as extensive use of Urdu and Persian sources as he could have and he is over reliant on Ghalib and one or two others to portray the social history of the mutiny. However the book is still a wonderful read bursting with information and it attempts to portray a balanced view of the events. Dalrymple interweaves contemporary sources with his text masterfully and his inclusion and discussion of some of the poetry of the time makes for a most welcome distraction. Similarly the chapter where he discusses pre-mutiny Delhi is perhaps the most powerful, at least to any Indian Muslim, and it is almost unbearable to think of the city that we have now lost.
This is by no means a full account of the mutiny, the book concentrates mainly on events in Delhi and the life of the last Emperor. However it is a most welcome addition to the mutiny literature and required reading for anyone with even a casual interest in the history of India.
Superb picture of Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857, 08 Aug 2008
This magnificent book is based on Persian and Urdu documents in India's National Archives. It vividly portrays Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857. The last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar II (1775-1862), was at the heart of a court of great brilliance, home of `the greatest literary renaissance in modern Indian history'. Architectural historian James Ferguson called his palace `the most splendid palace in the world'.
Dalrymple shows that the Uprising resulted from the Raj's growing racism and hatred, its `steady crescendo of insensitivity'. Its arrogant schemes to impose Evangelical Christianity and Christian laws on India `ushered in the most obnoxious phase of colonialism'.
The uprising was `along distinct class lines', with workers to the fore. It was the most serious armed challenge to imperialism in the 19th century, posed to the world's greatest military power. Dalrymple notes the rebels' military, strategic, administrative, logistical and financial failings and their war crimes. But the accusations of rape by the rebels were false: the official inquiry found not a single case of rape; the only mass rapes were by British soldiers after the reconquest of Delhi.
He reveals for the first time `the full scale of the viciousness and brutality of the British response', as detailed in the records of the revived British administration. "The orders were to shoot every soul. ... It was literally murder ... Heaven knows I feel no pity ..." wrote British officer Edward Vibart. Colonel A. R. D. Mackenzie boasted that we "exterminated them as men kill snakes wherever they meet them." After killing three unarmed captive princes, Captain William Hodson wrote to his sister, "I am not cruel, but I confess I did enjoy the opportunity of ridding the earth of these wretches."
Lieutenant Charles Griffiths wrote of John Clifford, the former collector of Gurgaon, "He shook my hands, saying that he had put to death all he had come across, not excepting women and children, and from his excited manner and the appearance of his dress - which was covered with blood stains - I quite believe he told the truth." Governor-General Lord Canning told Queen Victoria that the British forces displayed `a rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness'.
Palmerston said that Delhi should be deleted from the map, `levelled to the ground'. British forces sacked, looted and emptied Delhi and massacred great swathes of its people. Much of the palace and its surrounding areas were razed. Most of its leading inhabitants were killed or transported to die in the Raj's new Andaman Islands camp for 10,000 prisoners. As far as the Mughal elite were concerned, the British response was `approaching a genocide' and `would today be classified as grisly war crimes'.
Dalrymple sums up, "That massacre of the inhabitants of Delhi, commanded and justified in the eyes of Victorian Evangelicals by their reading of the Christian scriptures. ... `In the city no one's life was safe,' wrote Muin ud-Din Husain Khan. `All able-bodied men who were seen were taken for rebels and shot.' Ghalib, who had disliked the sepoys from the beginning, was now no less horrified by the barbarity of the returning British. `The victors killed all whom they found on the streets,' he wrote in Dastanbuy. `When the angry lions entered the town, they killed the helpless and weak and they burned their houses. Mass slaughter was rampant and streets were filled with horror. It may be that such atrocities always occur after conquest.'"
The Last Mughal's Pollyanna, 23 Jan 2008
The first rule of history is not to take sides, one that William Dalrymple breaks almost on the first page.
Attempting to replace the existing foreign ruling class of India with themselves, the British caused resentment that boiled over in 1857 into a full scale uprising. As the British and their Indian allies tried to put down the uprising both sides were the victims of, and the perpetrators of massacres, and both had their heroes and their villains.
Sadly Dalrymple undermines his detailed research by almost ignoring the massacres of Europeans and Christian converts and the culpability of the Mughal court in them while reporting in detail any British wrongdoing.
This is a good book ruined by the author's prejudices.
the last mughal, 23 Jan 2008
I have now read every single book ever published by William Dalrymple. I would be hard put to name a favourite as each one of them is something of a masterpiece in its own right. The Last Mughal must rate among the very best of Dalrymple's work and indeed must rank as one of the finest on the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Most accounts of the Mutiny are centred around the British forces gathered outside the walls of Delhi. This book gives a unique insight into what was happening inside the walls in the weeks and months leading up to the British invasion and the aftermath.
Dalrymple's writing of history is, in a sense, unique. The Last Mughal reads like a rivetting thriller without ever compromising on fact or scholarship. The author has a profound appreciation of his subject. For anyone with even a passing interest in Indian or British colonial history, a must read.
Important Lessons for Today, 25 Dec 2008
This book is a brilliant success on two levels. At the most basic level, it is a thrilling tale of high adventure. Whatever one's view of imperialism, one cannot deny the courage of men like Pottinger, Moorcroft, Conolly, Abbott, and Burnes - and their equally courageous Russian counterparts like Muraviev and Rafailov - who did not hesitate to travel thousands of miles across lands about which they knew nothing except that they contained vast deserts, towering mountains, ferocious bandits, and local rulers who had good reason to be suspicious of them. Hopkirk's fair minded account pays due tribute to the explorer-spies on both sides, and explains both the mutual misunderstandings and the very real reasons each had to be wary of the other's intentions. At the same time, but at a much more elevated level, he provides a timely critique of Western meddling in Central Asia. He advances no agenda - he simply reports the facts, but they speak for themselves. It is a safe bet that no member of the British Cabinet which initiated the recent Helmand Province Campaign has read this book. Had they done so, history need not have repeated itself, foreseeable problems could have been avoided, and some fine people would still be alive. Indeed, it would be enough if they had considered only a single sentence, about another Afghan campaign that turned into a predictable disaster almost two hundred years ago, and the opinion of a man who knew something of both soldiering and the region: "The Duke of Wellington for one was strongly against it, warning that where the military successes ended the political difficulties would begin."
my favourite history book, 07 Nov 2008
A wonderful, fascinating, educational, thrilling boys own adventure......all the better because it's factual.
This grips from page one and never lets go, it bears reading and re-reading and just gets better every time.
Hopkirks writing is great and he is obviously both passionate and knowledgable about his subject.
But the best thing about this book was the fact that it contained so much information that I didnt know (and I'm a big reader of history books), there's a new, little known, gem of information on almost every page.
I cant recommend this book highly enough.
Interesting and Entertaining, 10 Aug 2008
A very informative book about the Great Game, the 19th century version of the cold war between Imperial Russia and the British Empire, as both powers tried to dominate over Asia. The author, Peter Hopkirk, tells how Britain, the dominant power in South Asia at the time, saw ominously how Russia, as it took over Central Asia, became closer and closer to its Indian dominions. Hopkirk tries to tell the story as neutrally as he can, and the material covered is so interesting that each of its 30 plus chapters could, if expanded, be a book of its own. The book covers a whole century, from the early, failed attempts of Russia to occupy the then unknown emirates of Central Asia (where many of its subjects were enslaved) to Francis Younghusband's invasion of Tibet, and takes place as well in places as different as the Caucasus, Persia, Afghanistan, Xinjiang and the High Pamirs. By the end of the 19th century, direct war between the two powers seemed inevitable, but almost miraculously this was avoided. As Britain and Russia became allies during two world wars during the 20th century (and the Soviet Union seem to hold a firm grip over Central Asia) this story was sort of forgotten, but with the independence of the Stans, and the present troubles in the Middle East, the book seems surprisingly urgent. Highly recommended.
A fascinating read... truth is stranger than fiction..., 18 Dec 2007
Colonialism was not paternalism neither was benevolent... but if ever it was a "tempered" colonialism imbued by the precept "of doing the decent thing" it probably the British "empire" was...
All empires have menacing "borders" where their influence is contested... this is one of the most fascinating reads on the subject by far... an History page turner in fact... sometimes you want to laugh at some folly... or are deeply moved by pure unselfish heroism (I know today this sounds absurd... but there was a time where THAT kind of breed existed...)
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (but have in mind that the notion that are peoples and races not able to govern themselves is a fallacy... this is the sane maxim to have present...).
ADB
PS: In fact "GREAT EMPIRES" are mainly found in History Books Maps where large untamed and rebellious areas of the world are "painted" red in the case of the British Empire... (when actually the dominion was largely that of the seas and trade)... or whatever other colour in the case of the largely mythical Spanish Empire (which of course also went bankrupt)... but that is another story.
Good- if a bit biased review, 21 Aug 2007
This is a good synopsys of the subject BUT if you happen to not be a white european youre ignored completely! Considering most of the local population is NOT white European this comes across as a boys own story in somebody-elses land- and im sure there there were consequences to their actions- i just hope they werent too severe! Surely an Indian response to this is deserved!
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Customer Reviews
Prejudiced, 08 Dec 2008
Having really enjoyed White Mughals I opened this book with anticipation which was not to be realised. In his previous book I saw Dalrymple did not like the Evangelicals who gained control of The East India Company. Here his dislike really shows. He simplisticly seems to put them as the cause of the mutiny and the encouragers of brutal reprisals. Other sources do not agree. In his Urdu book, Asbab-e Baghawat-e Hind (Causes of the Indian Mutiny),[25] Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan asserted
"I believe that there was but one primary cause of the rebellion, the others being merely incidental and arising out of it ... [T]he Natives of India, without perhaps a single exception, blame the Government for having deprived them of their position and dignity and for keeping them down ... Was not the Government aware that the Natives of the very highest rank trembled before its officers, and were in daily fear of suffering the greatest insults and indignities at their hands?" The resulting atrocities would make Cromwell in Ireland appear to be a model of military rectitude.
In his previous book there was one character whose story held the narrative together. The last emperor holds no such fascination. Despite the rave reviews my interest was not held.
A must read, 03 Sep 2008
Dalrymple produces fantastically readable books and this history of 1857 is no exception. This, is perhaps one of the few histories written I English that attempts to use Urdu sources (the other notable book that does so is Amaresh Misra's War of Civilisations). However, Dalrymple doesn't make as extensive use of Urdu and Persian sources as he could have and he is over reliant on Ghalib and one or two others to portray the social history of the mutiny. However the book is still a wonderful read bursting with information and it attempts to portray a balanced view of the events. Dalrymple interweaves contemporary sources with his text masterfully and his inclusion and discussion of some of the poetry of the time makes for a most welcome distraction. Similarly the chapter where he discusses pre-mutiny Delhi is perhaps the most powerful, at least to any Indian Muslim, and it is almost unbearable to think of the city that we have now lost.
This is by no means a full account of the mutiny, the book concentrates mainly on events in Delhi and the life of the last Emperor. However it is a most welcome addition to the mutiny literature and required reading for anyone with even a casual interest in the history of India.
Superb picture of Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857, 08 Aug 2008
This magnificent book is based on Persian and Urdu documents in India's National Archives. It vividly portrays Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857. The last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar II (1775-1862), was at the heart of a court of great brilliance, home of `the greatest literary renaissance in modern Indian history'. Architectural historian James Ferguson called his palace `the most splendid palace in the world'.
Dalrymple shows that the Uprising resulted from the Raj's growing racism and hatred, its `steady crescendo of insensitivity'. Its arrogant schemes to impose Evangelical Christianity and Christian laws on India `ushered in the most obnoxious phase of colonialism'.
The uprising was `along distinct class lines', with workers to the fore. It was the most serious armed challenge to imperialism in the 19th century, posed to the world's greatest military power. Dalrymple notes the rebels' military, strategic, administrative, logistical and financial failings and their war crimes. But the accusations of rape by the rebels were false: the official inquiry found not a single case of rape; the only mass rapes were by British soldiers after the reconquest of Delhi.
He reveals for the first time `the full scale of the viciousness and brutality of the British response', as detailed in the records of the revived British administration. "The orders were to shoot every soul. ... It was literally murder ... Heaven knows I feel no pity ..." wrote British officer Edward Vibart. Colonel A. R. D. Mackenzie boasted that we "exterminated them as men kill snakes wherever they meet them." After killing three unarmed captive princes, Captain William Hodson wrote to his sister, "I am not cruel, but I confess I did enjoy the opportunity of ridding the earth of these wretches."
Lieutenant Charles Griffiths wrote of John Clifford, the former collector of Gurgaon, "He shook my hands, saying that he had put to death all he had come across, not excepting women and children, and from his excited manner and the appearance of his dress - which was covered with blood stains - I quite believe he told the truth." Governor-General Lord Canning told Queen Victoria that the British forces displayed `a rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness'.
Palmerston said that Delhi should be deleted from the map, `levelled to the ground'. British forces sacked, looted and emptied Delhi and massacred great swathes of its people. Much of the palace and its surrounding areas were razed. Most of its leading inhabitants were killed or transported to die in the Raj's new Andaman Islands camp for 10,000 prisoners. As far as the Mughal elite were concerned, the British response was `approaching a genocide' and `would today be classified as grisly war crimes'.
Dalrymple sums up, "That massacre of the inhabitants of Delhi, commanded and justified in the eyes of Victorian Evangelicals by their reading of the Christian scriptures. ... `In the city no one's life was safe,' wrote Muin ud-Din Husain Khan. `All able-bodied men who were seen were taken for rebels and shot.' Ghalib, who had disliked the sepoys from the beginning, was now no less horrified by the barbarity of the returning British. `The victors killed all whom they found on the streets,' he wrote in Dastanbuy. `When the angry lions entered the town, they killed the helpless and weak and they burned their houses. Mass slaughter was rampant and streets were filled with horror. It may be that such atrocities always occur after conquest.'"
The Last Mughal's Pollyanna, 23 Jan 2008
The first rule of history is not to take sides, one that William Dalrymple breaks almost on the first page.
Attempting to replace the existing foreign ruling class of India with themselves, the British caused resentment that boiled over in 1857 into a full scale uprising. As the British and their Indian allies tried to put down the uprising both sides were the victims of, and the perpetrators of massacres, and both had their heroes and their villains.
Sadly Dalrymple undermines his detailed research by almost ignoring the massacres of Europeans and Christian converts and the culpability of the Mughal court in them while reporting in detail any British wrongdoing.
This is a good book ruined by the author's prejudices.
the last mughal, 23 Jan 2008
I have now read every single book ever published by William Dalrymple. I would be hard put to name a favourite as each one of them is something of a masterpiece in its own right. The Last Mughal must rate among the very best of Dalrymple's work and indeed must rank as one of the finest on the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Most accounts of the Mutiny are centred around the British forces gathered outside the walls of Delhi. This book gives a unique insight into what was happening inside the walls in the weeks and months leading up to the British invasion and the aftermath.
Dalrymple's writing of history is, in a sense, unique. The Last Mughal reads like a rivetting thriller without ever compromising on fact or scholarship. The author has a profound appreciation of his subject. For anyone with even a passing interest in Indian or British colonial history, a must read.
Important Lessons for Today, 25 Dec 2008
This book is a brilliant success on two levels. At the most basic level, it is a thrilling tale of high adventure. Whatever one's view of imperialism, one cannot deny the courage of men like Pottinger, Moorcroft, Conolly, Abbott, and Burnes - and their equally courageous Russian counterparts like Muraviev and Rafailov - who did not hesitate to travel thousands of miles across lands about which they knew nothing except that they contained vast deserts, towering mountains, ferocious bandits, and local rulers who had good reason to be suspicious of them. Hopkirk's fair minded account pays due tribute to the explorer-spies on both sides, and explains both the mutual misunderstandings and the very real reasons each had to be wary of the other's intentions. At the same time, but at a much more elevated level, he provides a timely critique of Western meddling in Central Asia. He advances no agenda - he simply reports the facts, but they speak for themselves. It is a safe bet that no member of the British Cabinet which initiated the recent Helmand Province Campaign has read this book. Had they done so, history need not have repeated itself, foreseeable problems could have been avoided, and some fine people would still be alive. Indeed, it would be enough if they had considered only a single sentence, about another Afghan campaign that turned into a predictable disaster almost two hundred years ago, and the opinion of a man who knew something of both soldiering and the region: "The Duke of Wellington for one was strongly against it, warning that where the military successes ended the political difficulties would begin." my favourite history book, 07 Nov 2008
A wonderful, fascinating, educational, thrilling boys own adventure......all the better because it's factual.
This grips from page one and never lets go, it bears reading and re-reading and just gets better every time.
Hopkirks writing is great and he is obviously both passionate and knowledgable about his subject.
But the best thing about this book was the fact that it contained so much information that I didnt know (and I'm a big reader of history books), there's a new, little known, gem of information on almost every page.
I cant recommend this book highly enough. Interesting and Entertaining, 10 Aug 2008
A very informative book about the Great Game, the 19th century version of the cold war between Imperial Russia and the British Empire, as both powers tried to dominate over Asia. The author, Peter Hopkirk, tells how Britain, the dominant power in South Asia at the time, saw ominously how Russia, as it took over Central Asia, became closer and closer to its Indian dominions. Hopkirk tries to tell the story as neutrally as he can, and the material covered is so interesting that each of its 30 plus chapters could, if expanded, be a book of its own. The book covers a whole century, from the early, failed attempts of Russia to occupy the then unknown emirates of Central Asia (where many of its subjects were enslaved) to Francis Younghusband's invasion of Tibet, and takes place as well in places as different as the Caucasus, Persia, Afghanistan, Xinjiang and the High Pamirs. By the end of the 19th century, direct war between the two powers seemed inevitable, but almost miraculously this was avoided. As Britain and Russia became allies during two world wars during the 20th century (and the Soviet Union seem to hold a firm grip over Central Asia) this story was sort of forgotten, but with the independence of the Stans, and the present troubles in the Middle East, the book seems surprisingly urgent. Highly recommended. A fascinating read... truth is stranger than fiction..., 18 Dec 2007
Colonialism was not paternalism neither was benevolent... but if ever it was a "tempered" colonialism imbued by the precept "of doing the decent thing" it probably the British "empire" was...
All empires have menacing "borders" where their influence is contested... this is one of the most fascinating reads on the subject by far... an History page turner in fact... sometimes you want to laugh at some folly... or are deeply moved by pure unselfish heroism (I know today this sounds absurd... but there was a time where THAT kind of breed existed...)
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (but have in mind that the notion that are peoples and races not able to govern themselves is a fallacy... this is the sane maxim to have present...).
ADB
PS: In fact "GREAT EMPIRES" are mainly found in History Books Maps where large untamed and rebellious areas of the world are "painted" red in the case of the British Empire... (when actually the dominion was largely that of the seas and trade)... or whatever other colour in the case of the largely mythical Spanish Empire (which of course also went bankrupt)... but that is another story. Good- if a bit biased review, 21 Aug 2007
This is a good synopsys of the subject BUT if you happen to not be a white european youre ignored completely! Considering most of the local population is NOT white European this comes across as a boys own story in somebody-elses land- and im sure there there were consequences to their actions- i just hope they werent too severe! Surely an Indian response to this is deserved! Graceful, dazzling multicultural history, 08 Feb 1999
Jonathan Spence's approach here is so effortlessly engaging, so like a work of historically informed fiction, that you can easily lose sight of just how responsible and convincing it is at the same time. Framing the book with Ricci's own mnemonic imagery gives Spence a complex but perfectly coherent lens through which to write. Spence deftly allows Ricci's own images to define the scope of the narrative as well, so he isn't burdened with scholarly asides attempting to fill in the gaps with a general history. This is a book of simple genius. I've reviewed several books on Amazon, and never given a five star rating before. This wonderful book rates a five.
Incredible insights into the art of memory., 26 Mar 1998
This book is worth reading for the account of Ricci's memory system alone. The way the Jesuits used the power of the sensory imagination to remember texts or chinese characters is inspirational. Spence explains the secrets of creating such a system, though this ain't no self-help book. But more interesting still was the way that Ricci used his imaginative interpretations of chinese pictograms to convey Christian images and ideas to the Chinese; and the way that he performed memory feats to impress and gain access to high chinese circles for his work.
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Customer Reviews
Prejudiced, 08 Dec 2008
Having really enjoyed White Mughals I opened this book with anticipation which was not to be realised. In his previous book I saw Dalrymple did not like the Evangelicals who gained control of The East India Company. Here his dislike really shows. He simplisticly seems to put them as the cause of the mutiny and the encouragers of brutal reprisals. Other sources do not agree. In his Urdu book, Asbab-e Baghawat-e Hind (Causes of the Indian Mutiny),[25] Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan asserted
"I believe that there was but one primary cause of the rebellion, the others being merely incidental and arising out of it ... [T]he Natives of India, without perhaps a single exception, blame the Government for having deprived them of their position and dignity and for keeping them down ... Was not the Government aware that the Natives of the very highest rank trembled before its officers, and were in daily fear of suffering the greatest insults and indignities at their hands?" The resulting atrocities would make Cromwell in Ireland appear to be a model of military rectitude.
In his previous book there was one character whose story held the narrative together. The last emperor holds no such fascination. Despite the rave reviews my interest was not held.
A must read, 03 Sep 2008
Dalrymple produces fantastically readable books and this history of 1857 is no exception. This, is perhaps one of the few histories written I English that attempts to use Urdu sources (the other notable book that does so is Amaresh Misra's War of Civilisations). However, Dalrymple doesn't make as extensive use of Urdu and Persian sources as he could have and he is over reliant on Ghalib and one or two others to portray the social history of the mutiny. However the book is still a wonderful read bursting with information and it attempts to portray a balanced view of the events. Dalrymple interweaves contemporary sources with his text masterfully and his inclusion and discussion of some of the poetry of the time makes for a most welcome distraction. Similarly the chapter where he discusses pre-mutiny Delhi is perhaps the most powerful, at least to any Indian Muslim, and it is almost unbearable to think of the city that we have now lost.
This is by no means a full account of the mutiny, the book concentrates mainly on events in Delhi and the life of the last Emperor. However it is a most welcome addition to the mutiny literature and required reading for anyone with even a casual interest in the history of India.
Superb picture of Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857, 08 Aug 2008
This magnificent book is based on Persian and Urdu documents in India's National Archives. It vividly portrays Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857. The last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar II (1775-1862), was at the heart of a court of great brilliance, home of `the greatest literary renaissance in modern Indian history'. Architectural historian James Ferguson called his palace `the most splendid palace in the world'.
Dalrymple shows that the Uprising resulted from the Raj's growing racism and hatred, its `steady crescendo of insensitivity'. Its arrogant schemes to impose Evangelical Christianity and Christian laws on India `ushered in the most obnoxious phase of colonialism'.
The uprising was `along distinct class lines', with workers to the fore. It was the most serious armed challenge to imperialism in the 19th century, posed to the world's greatest military power. Dalrymple notes the rebels' military, strategic, administrative, logistical and financial failings and their war crimes. But the accusations of rape by the rebels were false: the official inquiry found not a single case of rape; the only mass rapes were by British soldiers after the reconquest of Delhi.
He reveals for the first time `the full scale of the viciousness and brutality of the British response', as detailed in the records of the revived British administration. "The orders were to shoot every soul. ... It was literally murder ... Heaven knows I feel no pity ..." wrote British officer Edward Vibart. Colonel A. R. D. Mackenzie boasted that we "exterminated them as men kill snakes wherever they meet them." After killing three unarmed captive princes, Captain William Hodson wrote to his sister, "I am not cruel, but I confess I did enjoy the opportunity of ridding the earth of these wretches."
Lieutenant Charles Griffiths wrote of John Clifford, the former collector of Gurgaon, "He shook my hands, saying that he had put to death all he had come across, not excepting women and children, and from his excited manner and the appearance of his dress - which was covered with blood stains - I quite believe he told the truth." Governor-General Lord Canning told Queen Victoria that the British forces displayed `a rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness'.
Palmerston said that Delhi should be deleted from the map, `levelled to the ground'. British forces sacked, looted and emptied Delhi and massacred great swathes of its people. Much of the palace and its surrounding areas were razed. Most of its leading inhabitants were killed or transported to die in the Raj's new Andaman Islands camp for 10,000 prisoners. As far as the Mughal elite were concerned, the British response was `approaching a genocide' and `would today be classified as grisly war crimes'.
Dalrymple sums up, "That massacre of the inhabitants of Delhi, commanded and justified in the eyes of Victorian Evangelicals by their reading of the Christian scriptures. ... `In the city no one's life was safe,' wrote Muin ud-Din Husain Khan. `All able-bodied men who were seen were taken for rebels and shot.' Ghalib, who had disliked the sepoys from the beginning, was now no less horrified by the barbarity of the returning British. `The victors killed all whom they found on the streets,' he wrote in Dastanbuy. `When the angry lions entered the town, they killed the helpless and weak and they burned their houses. Mass slaughter was rampant and streets were filled with horror. It may be that such atrocities always occur after conquest.'"
The Last Mughal's Pollyanna, 23 Jan 2008
The first rule of history is not to take sides, one that William Dalrymple breaks almost on the first page.
Attempting to replace the existing foreign ruling class of India with themselves, the British caused resentment that boiled over in 1857 into a full scale uprising. As the British and their Indian allies tried to put down the uprising both sides were the victims of, and the perpetrators of massacres, and both had their heroes and their villains.
Sadly Dalrymple undermines his detailed research by almost ignoring the massacres of Europeans and Christian converts and the culpability of the Mughal court in them while reporting in detail any British wrongdoing.
This is a good book ruined by the author's prejudices.
the last mughal, 23 Jan 2008
I have now read every single book ever published by William Dalrymple. I would be hard put to name a favourite as each one of them is something of a masterpiece in its own right. The Last Mughal must rate among the very best of Dalrymple's work and indeed must rank as one of the finest on the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Most accounts of the Mutiny are centred around the British forces gathered outside the walls of Delhi. This book gives a unique insight into what was happening inside the walls in the weeks and months leading up to the British invasion and the aftermath.
Dalrymple's writing of history is, in a sense, unique. The Last Mughal reads like a rivetting thriller without ever compromising on fact or scholarship. The author has a profound appreciation of his subject. For anyone with even a passing interest in Indian or British colonial history, a must read.
Important Lessons for Today, 25 Dec 2008
This book is a brilliant success on two levels. At the most basic level, it is a thrilling tale of high adventure. Whatever one's view of imperialism, one cannot deny the courage of men like Pottinger, Moorcroft, Conolly, Abbott, and Burnes - and their equally courageous Russian counterparts like Muraviev and Rafailov - who did not hesitate to travel thousands of miles across lands about which they knew nothing except that they contained vast deserts, towering mountains, ferocious bandits, and local rulers who had good reason to be suspicious of them. Hopkirk's fair minded account pays due tribute to the explorer-spies on both sides, and explains both the mutual misunderstandings and the very real reasons each had to be wary of the other's intentions. At the same time, but at a much more elevated level, he provides a timely critique of Western meddling in Central Asia. He advances no agenda - he simply reports the facts, but they speak for themselves. It is a safe bet that no member of the British Cabinet which initiated the recent Helmand Province Campaign has read this book. Had they done so, history need not have repeated itself, foreseeable problems could have been avoided, and some fine people would still be alive. Indeed, it would be enough if they had considered only a single sentence, about another Afghan campaign that turned into a predictable disaster almost two hundred years ago, and the opinion of a man who knew something of both soldiering and the region: "The Duke of Wellington for one was strongly against it, warning that where the military successes ended the political difficulties would begin." my favourite history book, 07 Nov 2008
A wonderful, fascinating, educational, thrilling boys own adventure......all the better because it's factual.
This grips from page one and never lets go, it bears reading and re-reading and just gets better every time.
Hopkirks writing is great and he is obviously both passionate and knowledgable about his subject.
But the best thing about this book was the fact that it contained so much information that I didnt know (and I'm a big reader of history books), there's a new, little known, gem of information on almost every page.
I cant recommend this book highly enough. Interesting and Entertaining, 10 Aug 2008
A very informative book about the Great Game, the 19th century version of the cold war between Imperial Russia and the British Empire, as both powers tried to dominate over Asia. The author, Peter Hopkirk, tells how Britain, the dominant power in South Asia at the time, saw ominously how Russia, as it took over Central Asia, became closer and closer to its Indian dominions. Hopkirk tries to tell the story as neutrally as he can, and the material covered is so interesting that each of its 30 plus chapters could, if expanded, be a book of its own. The book covers a whole century, from the early, failed attempts of Russia to occupy the then unknown emirates of Central Asia (where many of its subjects were enslaved) to Francis Younghusband's invasion of Tibet, and takes place as well in places as different as the Caucasus, Persia, Afghanistan, Xinjiang and the High Pamirs. By the end of the 19th century, direct war between the two powers seemed inevitable, but almost miraculously this was avoided. As Britain and Russia became allies during two world wars during the 20th century (and the Soviet Union seem to hold a firm grip over Central Asia) this story was sort of forgotten, but with the independence of the Stans, and the present troubles in the Middle East, the book seems surprisingly urgent. Highly recommended. A fascinating read... truth is stranger than fiction..., 18 Dec 2007
Colonialism was not paternalism neither was benevolent... but if ever it was a "tempered" colonialism imbued by the precept "of doing the decent thing" it probably the British "empire" was...
All empires have menacing "borders" where their influence is contested... this is one of the most fascinating reads on the subject by far... an History page turner in fact... sometimes you want to laugh at some folly... or are deeply moved by pure unselfish heroism (I know today this sounds absurd... but there was a time where THAT kind of breed existed...)
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (but have in mind that the notion that are peoples and races not able to govern themselves is a fallacy... this is the sane maxim to have present...).
ADB
PS: In fact "GREAT EMPIRES" are mainly found in History Books Maps where large untamed and rebellious areas of the world are "painted" red in the case of the British Empire... (when actually the dominion was largely that of the seas and trade)... or whatever other colour in the case of the largely mythical Spanish Empire (which of course also went bankrupt)... but that is another story. Good- if a bit biased review, 21 Aug 2007
This is a good synopsys of the subject BUT if you happen to not be a white european youre ignored completely! Considering most of the local population is NOT white European this comes across as a boys own story in somebody-elses land- and im sure there there were consequences to their actions- i just hope they werent too severe! Surely an Indian response to this is deserved! Graceful, dazzling multicultural history, 08 Feb 1999
Jonathan Spence's approach here is so effortlessly engaging, so like a work of historically informed fiction, that you can easily lose sight of just how responsible and convincing it is at the same time. Framing the book with Ricci's own mnemonic imagery gives Spence a complex but perfectly coherent lens through which to write. Spence deftly allows Ricci's own images to define the scope of the narrative as well, so he isn't burdened with scholarly asides attempting to fill in the gaps with a general history. This is a book of simple genius. I've reviewed several books on Amazon, and never given a five star rating before. This wonderful book rates a five.
Incredible insights into the art of memory., 26 Mar 1998
This book is worth reading for the account of Ricci's memory system alone. The way the Jesuits used the power of the sensory imagination to remember texts or chinese characters is inspirational. Spence explains the secrets of creating such a system, though this ain't no self-help book. But more interesting still was the way that Ricci used his imaginative interpretations of chinese pictograms to convey Christian images and ideas to the Chinese; and the way that he performed memory feats to impress and gain access to high chinese circles for his work.
Brilliant!, 24 Feb 2007
This is a very good piece of work by Lawrence James. I like his style of writing which is simple, effective and oftentimes humorous. I don't hesitate in reccomending it. I picked this little gem up from a discount book store at a store in West London when I was studying as an undergraduate. Great book - do buy it.
Lots of information, but a simplistic and juvenile analysis., 15 Dec 2002
Just looking at the bilbliography Mr. James seems to have done a great deal of research for this book and attempts to cover a very broad subject. Nonetheless he hasn't done a good job. The book comes across as one mans apologia for the Raj. The selectively sampled references and his inappropriate citing of fiction as supporting information make this of little value to anyone seeking to understand the complex history of the British presence in India the institutions they encountered or built and the personalities that underscored it all. Might be of use to someone looking for a few useful snippets to support dinner table opinion, though.
A realistic view in a world of political correctness, 04 Dec 2002
James has produced a definitive account of the British Empire's greatest achievement without succumbing to the political correctness that clouds our ability to analyse and conclude based solely on the facts and the views of the time. The book traces the path from the initial fedual oligarchies with whom other nations and peoples had traded for centuries to the creation of the jewel of the world's largest empire to the today's position as the largest democracy in the world. This is an account of which both Indians and Britons should be immensely proud. From the British perspective, the legacy is a large and stable democracy able to solve its own problems as a largely united people under the rule of law. A country with an infrastructure and an open democratic process that is the envy of many other bankrupt, tribal and murderous ex-colonies of the European powers. For the Indians, a sense of proud nationhood not forged through brutal civil war and genocide and a true place and identity in the modern world. They retain a true love of Britain as a grateful friend.
I would recommend this book to those who wish to learn about a shared history through analysis of truth and facts
Still an anglocentric view, 13 Sep 2002
... this is a truly excellent factual account of the period studied,...[but] my reaction on finishing the book was disappointment. The author had clearly ignored his own analysis of the facts of colonialism and stuck to his principal belief that the British occupation was essentially 'a good thing'. Much of the first half of the book is a real eyeopener - the statistics of the poverty at least partly caused by British adventurers are arresting. However, the author's final conclusions lead me to believe that they were written considerably after the rest of the book - you can't say on the one hand that India was a rich country before the British arrived and wasn't when they left, and then on the other hand say that the British presence was benign, giving the Indians hospitals, railways and schools (not enough of them, I might add). Other countries that have not had the pleasure of European colonialism - Japan or Thailand for instance - seem to have done OK without us. Sure, India has created some of its own problems in the last 50 years, but those are its own problems to make. That's democracy in action.
An superb survey of a key part of British and Indian history, 13 Feb 2002
This book takes a wide perspective on a key component of both British and Indian history. He deals impressively with matters as diverse as racial attitudes, the part played by the Raj in Britain's position in the ninteenth century world, and the rise of Indian nationalism. All of this is done in a readable and engaging manner which must mark it down as one of the best surveys of this immense subject that have been written in recent years.
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The Indian Mutiny: 1857
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Customer Reviews
Prejudiced, 08 Dec 2008
Having really enjoyed White Mughals I opened this book with anticipation which was not to be realised. In his previous book I saw Dalrymple did not like the Evangelicals who gained control of The East India Company. Here his dislike really shows. He simplisticly seems to put them as the cause of the mutiny and the encouragers of brutal reprisals. Other sources do not agree. In his Urdu book, Asbab-e Baghawat-e Hind (Causes of the Indian Mutiny),[25] Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan asserted
"I believe that there was but one primary cause of the rebellion, the others being merely incidental and arising out of it ... [T]he Natives of India, without perhaps a single exception, blame the Government for having deprived them of their position and dignity and for keeping them down ... Was not the Government aware that the Natives of the very highest rank trembled before its officers, and were in daily fear of suffering the greatest insults and indignities at their hands?" The resulting atrocities would make Cromwell in Ireland appear to be a model of military rectitude.
In his previous book there was one character whose story held the narrative together. The last emperor holds no such fascination. Despite the rave reviews my interest was not held.
A must read, 03 Sep 2008
Dalrymple produces fantastically readable books and this history of 1857 is no exception. This, is perhaps one of the few histories written I English that attempts to use Urdu sources (the other notable book that does so is Amaresh Misra's War of Civilisations). However, Dalrymple doesn't make as extensive use of Urdu and Persian sources as he could have and he is over reliant on Ghalib and one or two others to portray the social history of the mutiny. However the book is still a wonderful read bursting with information and it attempts to portray a balanced view of the events. Dalrymple interweaves contemporary sources with his text masterfully and his inclusion and discussion of some of the poetry of the time makes for a most welcome distraction. Similarly the chapter where he discusses pre-mutiny Delhi is perhaps the most powerful, at least to any Indian Muslim, and it is almost unbearable to think of the city that we have now lost.
This is by no means a full account of the mutiny, the book concentrates mainly on events in Delhi and the life of the last Emperor. However it is a most welcome addition to the mutiny literature and required reading for anyone with even a casual interest in the history of India.
Superb picture of Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857, 08 Aug 2008
This magnificent book is based on Persian and Urdu documents in India's National Archives. It vividly portrays Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857. The last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar II (1775-1862), was at the heart of a court of great brilliance, home of `the greatest literary renaissance in modern Indian history'. Architectural historian James Ferguson called his palace `the most splendid palace in the world'.
Dalrymple shows that the Uprising resulted from the Raj's growing racism and hatred, its `steady crescendo of insensitivity'. Its arrogant schemes to impose Evangelical Christianity and Christian laws on India `ushered in the most obnoxious phase of colonialism'.
The uprising was `along distinct class lines', with workers to the fore. It was the most serious armed challenge to imperialism in the 19th century, posed to the world's greatest military power. Dalrymple notes the rebels' military, strategic, administrative, logistical and financial failings and their war crimes. But the accusations of rape by the rebels were false: the official inquiry found not a single case of rape; the only mass rapes were by British soldiers after the reconquest of Delhi.
He reveals for the first time `the full scale of the viciousness and brutality of the British response', as detailed in the records of the revived British administration. "The orders were to shoot every soul. ... It was literally murder ... Heaven knows I feel no pity ..." wrote British officer Edward Vibart. Colonel A. R. D. Mackenzie boasted that we "exterminated them as men kill snakes wherever they meet them." After killing three unarmed captive princes, Captain William Hodson wrote to his sister, "I am not cruel, but I confess I did enjoy the opportunity of ridding the earth of these wretches."
Lieutenant Charles Griffiths wrote of John Clifford, the former collector of Gurgaon, "He shook my hands, saying that he had put to death all he had come across, not excepting women and children, and from his excited manner and the appearance of his dress - which was covered with blood stains - I quite believe he told the truth." Governor-General Lord Canning told Queen Victoria that the British forces displayed `a rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness'.
Palmerston said that Delhi should be deleted from the map, `levelled to the ground'. British forces sacked, looted and emptied Delhi and massacred great swathes of its people. Much of the palace and its surrounding areas were razed. Most of its leading inhabitants were killed or transported to die in the Raj's new Andaman Islands camp for 10,000 prisoners. As far as the Mughal elite were concerned, the British response was `approaching a genocide' and `would today be classified as grisly war crimes'.
Dalrymple sums up, "That massacre of the inhabitants of Delhi, commanded and justified in the eyes of Victorian Evangelicals by their reading of the Christian scriptures. ... `In the city no one's life was safe,' wrote Muin ud-Din Husain Khan. `All able-bodied men who were seen were taken for rebels and shot.' Ghalib, who had disliked the sepoys from the beginning, was now no less horrified by the barbarity of the returning British. `The victors killed all whom they found on the streets,' he wrote in Dastanbuy. `When the angry lions entered the town, they killed the helpless and weak and they burned their houses. Mass slaughter was rampant and streets were filled with horror. It may be that such atrocities always occur after conquest.'"
The Last Mughal's Pollyanna, 23 Jan 2008
The first rule of history is not to take sides, one that William Dalrymple breaks almost on the first page.
Attempting to replace the existing foreign ruling class of India with themselves, the British caused resentment that boiled over in 1857 into a full scale uprising. As the British and their Indian allies tried to put down the uprising both sides were the victims of, and the perpetrators of massacres, and both had their heroes and their villains.
Sadly Dalrymple undermines his detailed research by almost ignoring the massacres of Europeans and Christian converts and the culpability of the Mughal court in them while reporting in detail any British wrongdoing.
This is a good book ruined by the author's prejudices.
the last mughal, 23 Jan 2008
I have now read every single book ever published by William Dalrymple. I would be hard put to name a favourite as each one of them is something of a masterpiece in its own right. The Last Mughal must rate among the very best of Dalrymple's work and indeed must rank as one of the finest on the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Most accounts of the Mutiny are centred around the British forces gathered outside the walls of Delhi. This book gives a unique insight into what was happening inside the walls in the weeks and months leading up to the British invasion and the aftermath.
Dalrymple's writing of history is, in a sense, unique. The Last Mughal reads like a rivetting thriller without ever compromising on fact or scholarship. The author has a profound appreciation of his subject. For anyone with even a passing interest in Indian or British colonial history, a must read.
Important Lessons for Today, 25 Dec 2008
This book is a brilliant success on two levels. At the most basic level, it is a thrilling tale of high adventure. Whatever one's view of imperialism, one cannot deny the courage of men like Pottinger, Moorcroft, Conolly, Abbott, and Burnes - and their equally courageous Russian counterparts like Muraviev and Rafailov - who did not hesitate to travel thousands of miles across lands about which they knew nothing except that they contained vast deserts, towering mountains, ferocious bandits, and local rulers who had good reason to be suspicious of them. Hopkirk's fair minded account pays due tribute to the explorer-spies on both sides, and explains both the mutual misunderstandings and the very real reasons each had to be wary of the other's intentions. At the same time, but at a much more elevated level, he provides a timely critique of Western meddling in Central Asia. He advances no agenda - he simply reports the facts, but they speak for themselves. It is a safe bet that no member of the British Cabinet which initiated the recent Helmand Province Campaign has read this book. Had they done so, history need not have repeated itself, foreseeable problems could have been avoided, and some fine people would still be alive. Indeed, it would be enough if they had considered only a single sentence, about another Afghan campaign that turned into a predictable disaster almost two hundred years ago, and the opinion of a man who knew something of both soldiering and the region: "The Duke of Wellington for one was strongly against it, warning that where the military successes ended the political difficulties would begin." my favourite history book, 07 Nov 2008
A wonderful, fascinating, educational, thrilling boys own adventure......all the better because it's factual.
This grips from page one and never lets go, it bears reading and re-reading and just gets better every time.
Hopkirks writing is great and he is obviously both passionate and knowledgable about his subject.
But the best thing about this book was the fact that it contained so much information that I didnt know (and I'm a big reader of history books), there's a new, little known, gem of information on almost every page.
I cant recommend this book highly enough. Interesting and Entertaining, 10 Aug 2008
A very informative book about the Great Game, the 19th century version of the cold war between Imperial Russia and the British Empire, as both powers tried to dominate over Asia. The author, Peter Hopkirk, tells how Britain, the dominant power in South Asia at the time, saw ominously how Russia, as it took over Central Asia, became closer and closer to its Indian dominions. Hopkirk tries to tell the story as neutrally as he can, and the material covered is so interesting that each of its 30 plus chapters could, if expanded, be a book of its own. The book covers a whole century, from the early, failed attempts of Russia to occupy the then unknown emirates of Central Asia (where many of its subjects were enslaved) to Francis Younghusband's invasion of Tibet, and takes place as well in places as different as the Caucasus, Persia, Afghanistan, Xinjiang and the High Pamirs. By the end of the 19th century, direct war between the two powers seemed inevitable, but almost miraculously this was avoided. As Britain and Russia became allies during two world wars during the 20th century (and the Soviet Union seem to hold a firm grip over Central Asia) this story was sort of forgotten, but with the independence of the Stans, and the present troubles in the Middle East, the book seems surprisingly urgent. Highly recommended. A fascinating read... truth is stranger than fiction..., 18 Dec 2007
Colonialism was not paternalism neither was benevolent... but if ever it was a "tempered" colonialism imbued by the precept "of doing the decent thing" it probably the British "empire" was...
All empires have menacing "borders" where their influence is contested... this is one of the most fascinating reads on the subject by far... an History page turner in fact... sometimes you want to laugh at some folly... or are deeply moved by pure unselfish heroism (I know today this sounds absurd... but there was a time where THAT kind of breed existed...)
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (but have in mind that the notion that are peoples and races not able to govern themselves is a fallacy... this is the sane maxim to have present...).
ADB
PS: In fact "GREAT EMPIRES" are mainly found in History Books Maps where large untamed and rebellious areas of the world are "painted" red in the case of the British Empire... (when actually the dominion was largely that of the seas and trade)... or whatever other colour in the case of the largely mythical Spanish Empire (which of course also went bankrupt)... but that is another story. Good- if a bit biased review, 21 Aug 2007
This is a good synopsys of the subject BUT if you happen to not be a white european youre ignored completely! Considering most of the local population is NOT white European this comes across as a boys own story in somebody-elses land- and im sure there there were consequences to their actions- i just hope they werent too severe! Surely an Indian response to this is deserved! Graceful, dazzling multicultural history, 08 Feb 1999
Jonathan Spence's approach here is so effortlessly engaging, so like a work of historically informed fiction, that you can easily lose sight of just how responsible and convincing it is at the same time. Framing the book with Ricci's own mnemonic imagery gives Spence a complex but perfectly coherent lens through which to write. Spence deftly allows Ricci's own images to define the scope of the narrative as well, so he isn't burdened with scholarly asides attempting to fill in the gaps with a general history. This is a book of simple genius. I've reviewed several books on Amazon, and never given a five star rating before. This wonderful book rates a five.
Incredible insights into the art of memory., 26 Mar 1998
This book is worth reading for the account of Ricci's memory system alone. The way the Jesuits used the power of the sensory imagination to remember texts or chinese characters is inspirational. Spence explains the secrets of creating such a system, though this ain't no self-help book. But more interesting still was the way that Ricci used his imaginative interpretations of chinese pictograms to convey Christian images and ideas to the Chinese; and the way that he performed memory feats to impress and gain access to high chinese circles for his work.
Brilliant!, 24 Feb 2007
This is a very good piece of work by Lawrence James. I like his style of writing which is simple, effective and oftentimes humorous. I don't hesitate in reccomending it. I picked this little gem up from a discount book store at a store in West London when I was studying as an undergraduate. Great book - do buy it.
Lots of information, but a simplistic and juvenile analysis., 15 Dec 2002
Just looking at the bilbliography Mr. James seems to have done a great deal of research for this book and attempts to cover a very broad subject. Nonetheless he hasn't done a good job. The book comes across as one mans apologia for the Raj. The selectively sampled references and his inappropriate citing of fiction as supporting information make this of little value to anyone seeking to understand the complex history of the British presence in India the institutions they encountered or built and the personalities that underscored it all. Might be of use to someone looking for a few useful snippets to support dinner table opinion, though.
A realistic view in a world of political correctness, 04 Dec 2002
James has produced a definitive account of the British Empire's greatest achievement without succumbing to the political correctness that clouds our ability to analyse and conclude based solely on the facts and the views of the time. The book traces the path from the initial fedual oligarchies with whom other nations and peoples had traded for centuries to the creation of the jewel of the world's largest empire to the today's position as the largest democracy in the world. This is an account of which both Indians and Britons should be immensely proud. From the British perspective, the legacy is a large and stable democracy able to solve its own problems as a largely united people under the rule of law. A country with an infrastructure and an open democratic process that is the envy of many other bankrupt, tribal and murderous ex-colonies of the European powers. For the Indians, a sense of proud nationhood not forged through brutal civil war and genocide and a true place and identity in the modern world. They retain a true love of Britain as a grateful friend.
I would recommend this book to those who wish to learn about a shared history through analysis of truth and facts
Still an anglocentric view, 13 Sep 2002
... this is a truly excellent factual account of the period studied,...[but] my reaction on finishing the book was disappointment. The author had clearly ignored his own analysis of the facts of colonialism and stuck to his principal belief that the British occupation was essentially 'a good thing'. Much of the first half of the book is a real eyeopener - the statistics of the poverty at least partly caused by British adventurers are arresting. However, the author's final conclusions lead me to believe that they were written considerably after the rest of the book - you can't say on the one hand that India was a rich country before the British arrived and wasn't when they left, and then on the other hand say that the British presence was benign, giving the Indians hospitals, railways and schools (not enough of them, I might add). Other countries that have not had the pleasure of European colonialism - Japan or Thailand for instance - seem to have done OK without us. Sure, India has created some of its own problems in the last 50 years, but those are its own problems to make. That's democracy in action.
An superb survey of a key part of British and Indian history, 13 Feb 2002
This book takes a wide perspective on a key component of both British and Indian history. He deals impressively with matters as diverse as racial attitudes, the part played by the Raj in Britain's position in the ninteenth century world, and the rise of Indian nationalism. All of this is done in a readable and engaging manner which must mark it down as one of the best surveys of this immense subject that have been written in recent years.
A pleasant surprise, 28 Oct 2008
Having expected a 'revisionist' view of the Mutiny, I got one. However, instead of having to endure the cheap revisionism of an author just contradicting everyone else, I was instead wowed by excellent analysis and compelling logic.
David tells the story and then interprets it in a very measured and steady fashion. This is not to imply that he is boring. Quite the reverse. It is just that interpretation is as important for him as the facts themselves. As a result I found the book far more intellectually stimulating than anything else I have read on the Mutiny.
The central thesis that the Bengal Army mutinied to better itself cuts across both British and Indian myth making. Actually this interpretation makes the entire sequence of events more chilling. David is right, though. Promotion by seniority was killing ambition or opportunity. Pay could no longer be supplemented by booty or extra allowances. Officers were no longer close to their men to the degree that had worked before. Reputation, particularly for poor Brahmins in the infantry was being eroded.
Before I get carried away and write an essay, I need to stop and say "Well done, Saul". You managed to analyse without boring, narrate without irritating, theorise without dehumanising. We have all this - without being robbed of an amazing story - fights against huge odds, sudden flights into the jungle, horrific crimes, horrific retribution, remarkable people, ordinary people in remarkable times.
Essential reading for Indian history, 17 Oct 2007
Saul David does a sterling job of providing an entertaining and gripping account of the Indian mutiny which all but sealed the fate of the East India Company which was subsequently dissolved in 1858.
Once the narrative gets going it becomes very hard to put down this book and very little foreknowledge of the subject matter is demanded. There are sections when the some of the seiges and battles can get a bit repetitive but luckily those sections are few and far between.
I would recommend this as a starting point for anyone who wants to find out more about this pivotal event in both Indian and British history. The mutiny inspired the first serious attempts at independance from British rule but it also strengthened the British Empire when they were victorious.
The book focuses on the title so if you are looking for more background on the events leading upto the mutiny, British India or the East India Company this would not be the book for you. However, if you wanted to know about how the mutiny started, the misrepresentations in the British press and a very well put together account of the mutiny and subsequent rebellion attempts then jump straight in, you won't regret it.
However, it only gets 4 stars as I would've liked a little bit more from the Indian viewpoint.
All too conventional an account of the subject, 02 Apr 2007
This book is a useful; start to studying the events of 1857, when the people of India fought for their national sovereignty and for independence from the British Empire.
The Empire's servants called, and some still call, the revolt a `Mutiny', defining it as illegitimate. But it was the foreign rule that was illegitimate, because it denied India democracy and self-rule. As G. B. Malleson, Adjutant-General of the Bengal Army and the revolt's first historian, wrote, what was "at first apparently a military mutiny ... speedily changed its character and became a national insurrection." Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs all played a full part.
The Raj was a despotic regime dependent on military power. From the 1780s, the Imperial dogma was, "we acquired our Influence and Possessions by force, it is by force we must maintain them." As Lord James Bryce wrote in 1912, "The government of India by the English resembles that of her possessions by Rome in being virtually despotic." General Henry Rawlinson, India's Commander-in-Chief, said in 1920, "You may say what you like about not holding India by the sword, but you have held it by the sword for 100 years and when you give up the sword you will be turned out. You must keep the sword ready to hand and in case of trouble or rebellion use it relentlessly. Montagu calls it terrorism, so it is and in dealing with natives of all classes you have to use terrorism whether you like it or not."
In 1793, the Empire's rulers had imposed a `Permanent Settlement' on India which privatised the land and dispossessed the peasants. The Empire took 50-60% of the peasants' income in tax, more than the Mughal Emperors had taken, forcing the peasants into debt and then to sell their land to the bunyahs, the moneylenders. India's wealth was pillaged and her agriculture starved, in order to rack profit and rent up. The profits went to British investors, the rents to the Empire's allies, the landlords and princes. The British enquiry commission of 1832 admitted, "The settlement fashioned with great care and deliberation has to our painful knowledge subjected almost the whole of the lower classes to most grievous oppression." Charles Ball, a historian of the revolt, wrote, "in Bengal an amount of suffering and debasement existed which probably was not equaled and certainly not exceeded, in the slave-sates of America."
The Empire's rule was vicious. Governor-General Lord Dalhousie wrote in 1855, "torture in one shape or other is practised by the lower subordinates in every British province." The Report of the Commission for the Investigation of Alleged Cases of Torture at Madras, 1855, admitted `the general existence of torture for revenue purposes'. Torture was also normal police practice.
The revolt was violent, though nowhere near as bloody as its suppression. Karl Marx noted of Britain's newspapers, "while the cruelties of the English are related as acts of martial vigour, told simply, rapidly, without dwelling on disgusting details, the outrages of the natives, shocking as they are, are still deliberately exaggerated." A British officer said, "We hold court-martials on horseback, and every nigger we meet with we either string up or shoot."
Although the revolt was defeated, it did overthrow the East India Company's rule and its regime of robbery and corruption; the Company was wound up in 1874. After suppressing the revolt, India's British rulers used the old tactic of divide and rule to crush India's strivings for democracy and self-rule. "Divide et impera was the old Roman motto and it should be ours", Lord Elphinstone advised in 1859. The British state promoted Muslim separatism and set up separate electorates, a sure way to tear people politically apart. In the Punjab, the British won over the Sikhs by reminding them of the injuries and insults they had suffered under the Mughal Emperors. Sir Henry Lawrence, Chief Commissioner of Oudh, spread false rumours that Muslim rebels had desecrated Hindu temples.
The Empire then used the revolt's failure to justify their continued rule. If Indians could not revolt successfully, they could not rule themselves. Besides, as an MP said, "if we were to leave ... we should leave it to anarchy." The Empire's servants stressed its `superior' qualities of race and religion and its mission to `pacify' and `civilise' the Indians' `savagery'. As the Viceroy Sir John Lawrence wrote modestly, "we are here through our moral superiority, by the force of circumstances and by the will of Providence." But as a critic of empire noted, "a mission, historically speaking, is little more than another name for a tendency to rapine."
A century later, Winston Churchill said in Cabinet in 1940 that the Hindu-Moslem division had long been "a bulwark of British rule in India". The Times agreed, "The divisions exist and British rule is certain as long as they do." John Colville reported that in Cabinet, "Winston rejoiced in the quarrel which had broken out afresh between Hindus and Moslems, said he hoped it would remain bitter and bloody."
After the revolt, the Indian people continued to oppose foreign rule, winning their independence in 1947. Once the majority of a country's people want an occupier out, no amount of military force can keep the occupier in.
An average account, 21 Jul 2004
Whilst I love reading about all periods and aspects of history, it is true to say that military history can be particularly boring. There is nothing more turgid than reading about meaningless lists of battalions and regiments and who commanded who. They also are invariably right-wing in nature and fail to be objective. Accordingly, it is those writers such as Lynn MacDonald who have introduced the human aspect into their research that have produced the a more interesting narrative and, perhaps, a more commercially viable product for the general reader.
This account of the Indian Mutiny tends to fall between the two extremes - the lists of regiments who mutinied reflecting the less interesting aspect that contrast sharply with the shocking stories of the atrocities against women and children as told through letters and other accounts. In the latter instance, the chapter of Cawnpore is difficult to put down and fleshed out my scant knowledge of the events. However, it is true to say that the author is clearly on the side of the British , arguing that the Indian army rebelled through lack of opportunity to earn the money available in the times before the British Empire rather than religious or nationalistic motives. This may be true to some extent and the four appendices stuck at the end of the book serve to reinforce this point.
The stories to "daring-do" seem to have leapt from the books read by schoolboys many years ago and the list of characters includes both the traditional dashing heroes and bumbling officers. Unfortunately, the reference to the geography of India is a constant frustration as the maps are inadequate to follow the spread of the conflict and knowledge of the country would be a huge benefit to anyone interested in this book. ( This is nothing compared with the similar-sounding names of the Indian protagonists !! )
To summarise, this is an interesting and readable account of the mutiny, if somewhat conservative in it's conclusions and probably not definative. Readers may also wish to seek out Niall Flemings excellent " Empire: How Britain made the modern world" which has a more though-provoking approach to this period of history.
My thoughts on "The Indian Mutiny", 05 Mar 2004
The scene depicted on the front cover of this book, and the title immediately caught my attention. The back cover overview made me want to know more. However, the first couple of chapters failed to keep the attention as much as the back cover, as if the Saul had a problem getting started. Once started however, the pace picked up. I could barely put it down after that. The revelations about Mangal Pandy being the instigator and the facts about the greasing of cartridges with pork and beef fat are compelling. You’re further drawn in on hearing the inequalities between sepoys and their British officers: lower pay; having to pay for their uniform; lower pensions; little prospect of promotion. The list went on. Having explained the build-up to the mutiny – but not in enough depth I felt – Saul drew a picture of what was happening across the affected areas of India. Again, factual and believable. From then on though, while readable, the book gives the impression of being blatantly one-sided, showing events from the British perspective. A more rounded account from both sides would have been fairer and would have done history justice. Evidence from the Indian account of events does exist but Saul rarely dips into this. On many occasions the accounts from British officers seems to contradict that of their colleagues so you have to make up your own mind about what happened. I would also have liked to hear more about the East India Company which featured so heavily in the account of events. What was their view of events, what action had they taken to quell the mutiny, and perhaps more about the relationship between them and the British Government. Little attention is paid to these aspects. On the whole though, very compelling reading and one that makes you want to know more and research the object more.
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Product Description
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Customer Reviews
Prejudiced, 08 Dec 2008
Having really enjoyed White Mughals I opened this book with anticipation which was not to be realised. In his previous book I saw Dalrymple did not like the Evangelicals who gained control of The East India Company. Here his dislike really shows. He simplisticly seems to put them as the cause of the mutiny and the encouragers of brutal reprisals. Other sources do not agree. In his Urdu book, Asbab-e Baghawat-e Hind (Causes of the Indian Mutiny),[25] Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan asserted
"I believe that there was but one primary cause of the rebellion, the others being merely incidental and arising out of it ... [T]he Natives of India, without perhaps a single exception, blame the Government for having deprived them of their position and dignity and for keeping them down ... Was not the Government aware that the Natives of the very highest rank trembled before its officers, and were in daily fear of suffering the greatest insults and indignities at their hands?" The resulting atrocities would make Cromwell in Ireland appear to be a model of military rectitude.
In his previous book there was one character whose story held the narrative together. The last emperor holds no such fascination. Despite the rave reviews my interest was not held.
A must read, 03 Sep 2008
Dalrymple produces fantastically readable books and this history of 1857 is no exception. This, is perhaps one of the few histories written I English that attempts to use Urdu sources (the other notable book that does so is Amaresh Misra's War of Civilisations). However, Dalrymple doesn't make as extensive use of Urdu and Persian sources as he could have and he is over reliant on Ghalib and one or two others to portray the social history of the mutiny. However the book is still a wonderful read bursting with information and it attempts to portray a balanced view of the events. Dalrymple interweaves contemporary sources with his text masterfully and his inclusion and discussion of some of the poetry of the time makes for a most welcome distraction. Similarly the chapter where he discusses pre-mutiny Delhi is perhaps the most powerful, at least to any Indian Muslim, and it is almost unbearable to think of the city that we have now lost.
This is by no means a full account of the mutiny, the book concentrates mainly on events in Delhi and the life of the last Emperor. However it is a most welcome addition to the mutiny literature and required reading for anyone with even a casual interest in the history of India.
Superb picture of Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857, 08 Aug 2008
This magnificent book is based on Persian and Urdu documents in India's National Archives. It vividly portrays Mughal Delhi and its destruction in 1857. The last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar II (1775-1862), was at the heart of a court of great brilliance, home of `the greatest literary renaissance in modern Indian history'. Architectural historian James Ferguson called his palace `the most splendid palace in the world'.
Dalrymple shows that the Uprising resulted from the Raj's growing racism and hatred, its `steady crescendo of insensitivity'. Its arrogant schemes to impose Evangelical Christianity and Christian laws on India `ushered in the most obnoxious phase of colonialism'.
The uprising was `along distinct class lines', with workers to the fore. It was the most serious armed challenge to imperialism in the 19th century, posed to the world's greatest military power. Dalrymple notes the rebels' military, strategic, administrative, logistical and financial failings and their war crimes. But the accusations of rape by the rebels were false: the official inquiry found not a single case of rape; the only mass rapes were by British soldiers after the reconquest of Delhi.
He reveals for the first time `the full scale of the viciousness and brutality of the British response', as detailed in the records of the revived British administration. "The orders were to shoot every soul. ... It was literally murder ... Heaven knows I feel no pity ..." wrote British officer Edward Vibart. Colonel A. R. D. Mackenzie boasted that we "exterminated them as men kill snakes wherever they meet them." After killing three unarmed captive princes, Captain William Hodson wrote to his sister, "I am not cruel, but I confess I did enjoy the opportunity of ridding the earth of these wretches."
Lieutenant Charles Griffiths wrote of John Clifford, the former collector of Gurgaon, "He shook my hands, saying that he had put to death all he had come across, not excepting women and children, and from his excited manner and the appearance of his dress - which was covered with blood stains - I quite believe he told the truth." Governor-General Lord Canning told Queen Victoria that the British forces displayed `a rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness'.
Palmerston said that Delhi should be deleted from the map, `levelled to the ground'. British forces sacked, looted and emptied Delhi and massacred great swathes of its people. Much of the palace and its surrounding areas were razed. Most of its leading inhabitants were killed or transported to die in the Raj's new Andaman Islands camp for 10,000 prisoners. As far as the Mughal elite were concerned, the British response was `approaching a genocide' and `would today be classified as grisly war crimes'.
Dalrymple sums up, "That massacre of the inhabitants of Delhi, commanded and justified in the eyes of Victorian Evangelicals by their reading of the Christian scriptures. ... `In the city no one's life was safe,' wrote Muin ud-Din Husain Khan. `All able-bodied men who were seen were taken for rebels and shot.' Ghalib, who had disliked the sepoys from the beginning, was now no less horrified by the barbarity of the returning British. `The victors killed all whom they found on the streets,' he wrote in Dastanbuy. `When the angry lions entered the town, they killed the helpless and weak and they burned their houses. Mass slaughter was rampant and streets were filled with horror. It may be that such atrocities always occur after conquest.'"
The Last Mughal's Pollyanna, 23 Jan 2008
The first rule of history is not to take sides, one that William Dalrymple breaks almost on the first page.
Attempting to replace the existing foreign ruling class of India with themselves, the British caused resentment that boiled over in 1857 into a full scale uprising. As the British and their Indian allies tried to put down the uprising both sides were the victims of, and the perpetrators of massacres, and both had their heroes and their villains.
Sadly Dalrymple undermines his detailed research by almost ignoring the massacres of Europeans and Christian converts and the culpability of the Mughal court in them while reporting in detail any British wrongdoing.
This is a good book ruined by the author's prejudices.
the last mughal, 23 Jan 2008
I have now read every single book ever published by William Dalrymple. I would be hard put to name a favourite as each one of them is something of a masterpiece in its own right. The Last Mughal must rate among the very best of Dalrymple's work and indeed must rank as one of the finest on the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Most accounts of the Mutiny are centred around the British forces gathered outside the walls of Delhi. This book gives a unique insight into what was happening inside the walls in the weeks and months leading up to the British invasion and the aftermath.
Dalrymple's writing of history is, in a sense, unique. The Last Mughal reads like a rivetting thriller without ever compromising on fact or scholarship. The author has a profound appreciation of his subject. For anyone with even a passing interest in Indian or British colonial history, a must read.
Important Lessons for Today, 25 Dec 2008
This book is a brilliant success on two levels. At the most basic level, it is a thrilling tale of high adventure. Whatever one's view of imperialism, one cannot deny the courage of men like Pottinger, Moorcroft, Conolly, Abbott, and Burnes - and their equally courageous Russian counterparts like Muraviev and Rafailov - who did not hesitate to travel thousands of miles across lands about which they knew nothing except that they contained vast deserts, towering mountains, ferocious bandits, and local rulers who had good reason to be suspicious of them. Hopkirk's fair minded account pays due tribute to the explorer-spies on both sides, and explains both the mutual misunderstandings and the very real reasons each had to be wary of the other's intentions. At the same time, but at a much more elevated level, he provides a timely critique of Western meddling in Central Asia. He advances no agenda - he simply reports the facts, but they speak for themselves. It is a safe bet that no member of the British Cabinet which initiated the recent Helmand Province Campaign has read this book. Had they done so, history need not have repeated itself, foreseeable problems could have been avoided, and some fine people would still be alive. Indeed, it would be enough if they had considered only a single sentence, about another Afghan campaign that turned into a predictable disaster almost two hundred years ago, and the opinion of a man who knew something of both soldiering and the region: "The Duke of Wellington for one was strongly against it, warning that where the military successes ended the political difficulties would begin."
my favourite history book, 07 Nov 2008
A wonderful, fascinating, educational, thrilling boys own adventure......all the better because it's factual.
This grips from page one and never lets go, it bears reading and re-reading and just gets better every time.
Hopkirks writing is great and he is obviously both passionate and knowledgable about his subject.
But the best thing about this book was the fact that it contained so much information that I didnt know (and I'm a big reader of history books), there's a new, little known, gem of information on almost every page.
I cant recommend this book highly enough.
Interesting and Entertaining, 10 Aug 2008
A very informative book about the Great Game, the 19th century version of the cold war between Imperial Russia and the British Empire, as both powers tried to dominate over Asia. The author, Peter Hopkirk, tells how Britain, the dominant power | | |