Author:Richard M. Eaton
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE
'Remarkable ... this brilliant book stands as an important monument to an almost forgotten world' William Dalrymple, Spectator
A sweeping, magisterial new history of India from the middle ages to the arrival of the British
The Indian subcontinent might seem a self-contained world. Protected by vast mountains and seas, it has created its own religions, philosophies and social systems. And yet this ancient land experienced prolonged and intense interaction with the peoples and cultures of East and Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa and, especially, Central Asia and the Iranian plateau between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries.
Richard M. Eaton's wonderful new book tells this extraordinary story with relish and originality. His major theme is the rise of 'Persianate' culture - a many-faceted transregional world informed by a canon of texts that circulated through ever-widening networks across much of Asia. Introduced to India in the eleventh century by dynasties based in eastern Afghanistan, this culture would become thoroughly indigenized by the time of the great Mughals in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. This long-term process of cultural interaction and assimilation is reflected in India's language, literature, cuisine, attire, religion, styles of rulership and warfare, science, art, music, architecture, and more.
The book brilliantly elaborates the complex encounter between India's Sanskrit culture - which continued to flourish and grow throughout this period - and Persian culture, which helped shape the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire and a host of regional states, and made India what it is today.
Remarkable... Richard Eaton's brilliant book stands as an important monument to this almost forgotten world.
—— William Dalrymple , The SpectatorBy rethinking this history as India's 'Persianate age', Eaton breaks free from religious sectarianism that projects today's tensions into the past ... His book is a fine tribute to India.
—— Tanjil Rashid , The TimesA brilliant, gripping, refreshing and scholarly history of India from 1000AD to the 1750s, analysing the power of the Delhi Sultanate, the Mogul Empire, its rise and decline and the rise of the East India Company - totally essential reading.
—— Simon Sebag MontefioreGenius ... India in the Persianate Age is Eaton's mature masterpiece. It will, undoubtedly, become the authoritative account of this most politically controversial period of South Asia's long history.
—— Katherine Schofield , History TodayA richly researched, badly needed and wholly convincing account ... World history proves its worth.
—— John Keay , Literary ReviewRichard Eaton employs rich empirical detail to demonstrate that intellectual encounters between the Sanksrit and Persian worlds were not tied to any one religion and that the two were not hostile ... and does so with great panache.
—— Rudrangshu Mukherjee , Business StandardStunning. Wickedly perceptive, a scholarly masterpiece
—— DAVID OSHINSKY, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of PolioElegant and kaleidoscopic … this looks to be the perfect moment for King’s resolutely humane book
—— NEW YORK TIMESDeeply intelligent and immensely readable
—— Alison Gopnik , AtlanticThe notion of cultural relativism was as unique in its way as was Einstein’s theory of relativity in the discipline of physics, a shattering of the European mind. This remarkable book explains why. Franz Boas’s intuitions and insights, distilled in theory and practice by generations of scholars, a lineage that includes Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and Zora Neale Hurston, all brilliantly portrayed in the book, continue to inform contemporary anthropology, allowing the discipline to stand today as the antidote to nativism and the poisonous rhetoric of political demagogues. The entire purpose of anthropology, wrote Ruth Benedict, is to make the world safe for human differences. Never has the voice of anthropology been more important, and the arrival of this astonishing book can only be described as a gift to us all
—— Wade Davis, author of Into the SilenceMasterful. A vital book for our times
—— IBRAM X. KENDI, National Book Award-winning author of How To Be An AntiracistEngaging, deeply thought-provoking and brilliantly written. Charles King takes you on an unforgettable journey as daring anthropologists unravel the profound mysteries of culture and mankind
—— DAVID HOFFMAN, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Dead HandVitally relevant
—— GILLIAN TETT , Financial TimesA motley crew of rebellious young female scientists, inspired by a scar-faced mad-genius professor, boldly set out on intrepid journeys to study strange far-flung worlds, and discover that their own home-world is stranger than they thought. Along the way, they have tempestuous love-affairs, scary adventures, swashbuckling battles against armies of racists, sexists and eugenicists. In the end, they change our moral universe. Sounds like a sci-fi fantasy movie? It happened, here on Earth, nearly a century ago. A fascinating and important story, beautifully told
—— KATE FOX, author of Watching the EnglishAs told very engagingly by Charles King, their research turned upside down the then unshakeable assumption that certain people were innatley superior to others, because of their skin colour, culture and gender
—— Julia Lllewellyn Smith , *****Mail on SundayNothing short of magnificent … in many ways a deeply touching book. Charles King’s prose is immensely readable and perceptive and lends itself perfectly to telling one of the most fascinating tales of twentieth-century science
—— All About HistoryNo one until now has told this story of anthropology’s rise to [its] ‘master key’ status … Charles King’s book … does this with both subtlety and panache … A compelling account of mutliculturalism’s intellectual precursors
—— Peter Mandler , History TodayKing's book tells this many-layered, mostly forgotten story cogently and compellingly ... a gift to the field of anthropology and to us all
—— TLSKing's book tells...[a] many-layered history, mostly forgotten story cogently and compellingly, and his collective method is a wise and welcome departure from the standard genre of a book focused on one towering individual... it also enriches our understanding of his [Boas's] female students, especially Hurston, enabling us to appreciate that she worked to develop innovative, story-driven ways of communicating anthropological insights... In breathing new life Boas's story he [Charles King] has given a gift to the field of anthropology and to us all
—— Times Literary SupplementFranz Boas, whose achievements are set out in Charles King's The Reinvention of Humanity, recast the foundations of American anthropology. Against the prevailing political and intellectual orthodoxy, Boas and his students insisted that the basic unity of humankind was beyond dispute, and that within this unity there was no natural hierarchy of races, languages or cultures... That their ideas were found radical and strange is an indictment of their culture; that King's book seems timely is an indictment of our own
—— Francis Gooding , London Review of BooksFairweather tells this tragic tale in gripping fashion, bringing a new angle to the literature of the Holocaust
—— Publishers WeeklyBrilliantly researched, Jack Fairweather's book is both gripping and powerfully written - a riveting and deeply moving tale of courage in the face of unimaginable horror
—— Henry Hemming, bestselling author of M