A new interpretation of the Mughal Empire explores Mughal state formation through the pivotal role of its princes.

For more than 200 years, the Mughal emperors ruled supreme in northern India. How was it possible that a Muslim, ethnically Turkish, Persian-speaking dynasty established itself in the Indian subcontinent to become one of the largest and most dynamic empires on earth? In this rigorous new interpretation of the period, Munis D. Faruqui explores Mughal state formation through the pivotal role of the Mughal princes. In a challenge to previous scholarship, the book suggests that far from undermining the foundations of empire, the court intrigues and political backbiting that were features of Mughal political life - and that frequently resulted in rebellions and wars of succession - actually helped spread, deepen and mobilise Mughal power through an empire-wide network of friends and allies. This engaging book, which uses a vast archive of European and Persian sources, takes the reader from the founding of the empire under Babur to its decline in the 1700s.

On a hot April morning in 1673, two young Mughal nobles, Shamsher and his sister Zeenat, leave Shahjahanabad for a trip down the royal highway to the market town of Narnaul. The reluctant Shamsher is on a secret mission for his father; an excited Zeenat on one of her own. Their journey takes them through the shattered landscape of a recently crushed uprising – one different from those the Mughal Empire frequently spawned, of petty warlords fired by dreams of kingship. This revolt was rumoured to have been inspired by Kabir and led by a witch; her militant followers, many of them women and all of them rabble, called themselves ‘Followers of Truth’. The rebels were defeated, but the questions remained: Where had they come from and what did they want? Had Kabir, the revered saint–poet of Banaras, really incited violence? Why couldn’t the inclusiveness fostered by Emperor Akbar hold the realm together? What role did the firangis have to play? Or was it all simply because of the bigot on the throne? Set twelve years into the rule of the austere Aurangzeb Alamgir, in a time of impossible wealth and unbearable want, of brilliant architectural extravaganzas amidst ancient traditions of squalor, and of a caste society on the threshold of capitalism, Amita Kanekar’s powerful and intricately woven novel tells the story of an unlikely rebellion that almost brought imperial Dilli to its knees.

Each volume of the Dictionary of World Biography contains 250 entries on the lives of the individuals who shaped their times and left their mark on world history. This is not a who's who. Instead, each entry provides an in-depth essay on the life and career of the individual concerned. Essays commence with a quick reference section that provides basic facts on the individual's life and achievements. The extended biography places the life and works of the individual within an historical context, and the summary at the end of each essay provides a synopsis of the individual's place in history. All entries conclude with a fully annotated bibliography.

Dictionary of Wars, highly praised in its first edition (1986), has now been published in a completely revised, updated, and expanded 2nd Edition. The Dictionary provides summaries of all notable wars from earliest recorded history to the present day. It affords the general reader and student with quick, useful, and accurate information - the who, where, when, what, why and how on the more than 1,800 recorded wars in human history from 2000 BC to the present. Completely updated, the Second Edition includes an additional 70 entries - on such major events as the Gulf War, the invasions of Panama and Haiti, and the Bosnian crisis.

Annemarie Schimmel has written extensively on India, Islam and poetry. In this comprehensive study she presents an overview of the cultural, economic, militaristic and artistic attributes of the great Mughal Empire from 1526 to 1857.