![]() ![]() This book then is a prequel to Dalrymple’s earlier masterpiece The Last Mughal: The End of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857, which dealt with the twilight years of the Mughal Empire. ![]() ![]() “We still talk about the British conquering India, but that phrase disguises a more sinister reality,” he observes and points out how this was done not by competent authorities, “but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by a violent, utterly ruthless and intermittently mentally unstable corporate predator - Clive.” Here, his typical raciness is offset by scathing pronouncements on Britain’s colonial project which he deconstructs with élan. In this encyclopaedic volume, possibly the crowning glory of William Dalrymple’s oeuvre, his trademark raconteur style has been toned down in favour of viewing history from a somewhat subaltern perspective. ![]()
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