The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History Book

OK, this book is DEFINITELY NOT for the uninitiated. That means you. And me. I consider myself fairly well versed in late medieval Asian politics, but this one was a total kicker. I figure if I was a serious student of medieval India this would be one hell of an excellent book. Jackson definitely knows his shit, and recites at ease numerous nuances of the primary sources, their controversies, and obscure fragments and letters. He weaves in numismatics, epigraphical and archaelogical evidence to abet and analyze the claims made by the Indian chroniclers. This will easily work as an upper-level undergraduate textbook on the period.

Which is why it was such a pity I wasn't ready to undertake this. More a reference book than something you sit down and read, this 325-pg book took me one whole month to finish. Hence the textbook comment. But finish it I did. Part of the reason the going was so slow is that Jackson's "The Delhi Sultanate" comes across as an English translation of Barani and other Persian/Delhian chronicles of the northern Subcontinent during this time. The author is more interested in laying out a sequence of events rather than speculate on causal relationships, though to be sure he does some of that (as in his excellent analysis of the sultanates capitulation to Temur). While at times the discussions may seem bogged down, and the writing deadeningly monotonous, the work is still a terrific piece of scholarship. Just treat it as a reference and don't undertake it for pleasure reading.