William Dalrymple

Not just by shrewd manipulation or by force of superior arms, the East India Company’s empire was erected by the expert harnessing of the strings of an oceanic Indian credit

An extract from a new book by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand on when the Koh-i-Noor resided in Lahore

Karen Knorr’s Photoshop vision places animals in Rajasthan’s palatial grandeur. The result is magical, absurd, gorgeous.

The oldest classical Indian paintings, retrieved from time, and decay

Rivals join in coalition in the fraught politics of Afghanistan

William Dalrymple on his surroundings, routine, and the quiet, personal quirks that allow him to write

As the Great Game repeats itself, India must wake up to Karzai’s new moves

India’s new affluence runs parallel to a new, homogenised Hinduism that is riding on a crest of religiosity. Gone with Nehruvian economics is Nehruvian secularism.

In his compelling new book the acclaimed travel writer, explores the worlds of people deeply engaged with the sacred in a fast changing India.

The socio-cultural eddies and political winds that swirl around our greatest icon

I'm particularly astonished that there isn't a good biography of Shah Jahan or a modern description of the building of Shahjahanabad.

A subtle rebuke to those who like to see the relationship between the Christian and Islamic world exclusively and simplistically in terms of jihads and crusades, clashes, violence and destruction.

Sixty years after its birth, India faces a number of serious problems, but Pakistan's problems are on a different scale; indeed the country finds itself at a fundamental crossroads. We are back to the old question, and it is not just whither Pakistan

Two new books exemplify the polarised debate: one claims the British Empire was comparable to slavery and fascism; while for the other, the Victorian administrators of the Indian Civil Service, far from being oppressive exploiters, in fact "represen