The Last Mughal - The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857
by William Dalrymple
Bloomsbury, HK$144
As noted when The Last Mughal came out in pricey hardcover six months ago, William Dalrymple has written an epic in miniature. He also gives a fascinating insight into how the seeds of Islamic extremism were scattered after the Indian Mutiny of 1857 was crushed. Those seeds took root and, among other things, led to the Taleban, the crucible of al-Qaeda. Dalrymple won glowing reviews and generous prizes for his highly readable and beautifully illustrated 578-page account of the nearly successful uprising and the end of the Mughal empire under 82-year-old Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II, a 'chess-board king' whose lands and power were stripped away by Britain's rapacious East India Company. Dalrymple draws his story from the Mutiny Papers - some 20,000 largely forgotten Urdu and Persian documents found in the National Archives of India.
The skilful use of anecdote keeps the pace brisk and gives depth to a huge cast of characters, such as psychopathic Brigadier-General John Nicholson, who abandoned the practice of blowing mutineers from the mouths of cannons because 'the powder so expended might be more usefully employed'.
