White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India Book

White Mughals is the story of a romance but really it is the story of a moment in time when England and India explored each others' worlds and cultures with great delight and mutual admiration. And sadly, it is also the story of how everything changed in less than a generation.





This is the sort of book that demolishes all of your old notions of 'how it happened'. I read into the wee hours of the night and as I finished the book this morning I instantly went back to the beginning to work my way through the copious (and fascinating) footnotes.

Anyone with a serious interest in the history of the Indian subcontinent, or the British empire, or colonial history in general should read this book.

I was struck by how much damage one man--the Marquess of Wellesley, governor general of India and brother of the Duke of Wellington--managed to do. What a different course history might have taken had men like General William Palmer or William Kirkpatrick held the highest post. But, alas, Wellesley was merely in the vanguard of a new generation whose interest lay not in exploration and trade, but rather in establishing Britain as the dominant world power at the center of a vast empire.