A young British officer deserted during the First Afghan War (1839-42) and went to ground in the wilds of Tehri-Garhwal. Frederick 'Pahari'Wilson changed the face of the region forever and became a Himalayan legend. He played a daring role in the Great Game, was witness to the Anglo-Sikh War of 1845 - when the British nearly lost India - and became a pioneering force in the great Indian Railways adventure. Capturing the humour of the petty world of officers'clubs in Meerut, Mussoorie and Shimla, the chill of stiff winds on the high passes into Tibet, and the hardships of life in the remote valleys of Garhwal, The Raja of Harsil is a thrilling account of that tumultuous and exciting period. Driven by personal ambition, Frederick Wilson introduced commercial timbering to the Himalayas and became India's first timber magnate. An avid hunter, ornithologist and botanist, he settled at Harsil, near the source of the Ganges, and shared the lives and destinies of the Garhwali people. He acquired enormous wealth - becoming the richest man in northern India - and famous as the 'raja'of Harsil before falling into disfavour - termed a pariah for plundering Garhwal of its wildlife and natural resources.

Shortlisted for the 2022 George A. and Jeanne S. DeLong Book History Book Prize presented by the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing Winner of the 2021 Robert and Vineta Colby Scholarly Book Prize presented by the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals In Empire News, Priti Joshi examines the neglected archive of English-language newspapers from India to unpack the maintenance and tensions of empire. Focusing on the period between 1845 and 1860, she analyzes circulation—of newspapers and news, of peoples and ideas—and newspapers' coverage and management of crises. The book explores three moments of colonial crisis. The sensational trial of East India Company vs. Jyoti Prasad in Agra in 1851 as the Kohinoor diamond is exhibited in London's Hyde Park is a case lost but for colonial newspapers. In these accounts, the trial raises the specter of Warren Hastings and the costs of empire. The Uprising of 1857 was a geopolitical crisis, but for the Indian news media it was a story simultaneously of circulation and blockage, of contraction and expansion, of colonial media confronting its limits and innovating. Finally, Joshi traces circuits of exchange between Britain and India and across media platforms, including Dickens's Household Words, where the empire's mofussil (margin) appears in an unrecognized guise during and after the Uprising. By attending to these fascinating accounts in the Anglo-Indian press, Joshi illuminates the circulation and reproduction of colonial narratives and informs our understanding of the functioning of empire.

Hailed as a "wondrous book" by Gretel Ehrlich, and winner of the Kekoo Naoroji Book Award for Himalayan Literature—a journey of healing that becomes a pilgrimage for the soul. Stephen Alter was raised by American missionary parents in the hill station of Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas, where he and his wife, Ameeta, now live. Their idyllic existence was brutally interrupted when four armed intruders invaded their house and viciously attacked them, leaving them for dead. The violent assault and the trauma of almost dying left him questioning assumptions he had lived by since childhood. For the first time, he encountered the face of evil and the terror of the unknown. He felt like a foreigner in the land of his birth. This book is his account of a series of treks he took in the high Himalayas following his convalescence—to Bandar Punch (the monkey’s tail), Nanda Devi, the second highest mountain in India, and Mt. Kailash in Tibet. He set himself this goal to prove that he had healed mentally as well as physically and to re-knit his connection to his homeland. Undertaken out of sorrow, the treks become a moving soul journey, a way to rediscover mountains in his inner landscape. Weaving together observations of the natural world, Himalayan history, folklore and mythology, as well as encounters with other pilgrims along the way, Stephen Alter has given us a moving meditation on the solace of high places, and on the hidden meanings and enduring mystery of mountains.

Vaibhav Purandare grew up playing cricket at Shivaji Park, Mumbai, at the same time as the school-going Sachin Tendulkar was amassing loads of runs on the field. He watched helplessly as Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli walked away with a world-record partnership against his school. Purandare was taught in college by Tendulkar's father, Professor Ramesh Tendulkar, and was coached as a right-hand batsman and off-spin bowler by Tendulkar's coach, Ramakant Acharekar. He began his journalistic career in 1993 with the political newsmagazine Blitz and has since worked with India's leading newspapers like The Indian Express, The Asian Age, Mid Day, Mumbai Mirror and DNA, apart from writing for a host of other publications. His first book, The Sena Story, a history of the Hindu militant political party Shiv Sena, was published in 1999, when he was only twenty-three. He is currently Senior Associate Editor with the Hindustan Times, Mumbai.