While the atrocities committed by the Indian mutineers is inexcusable, the greater crime rests with England.

The Mutiny resulted from British insensitivity. Not Britain's finest hour.He is also different, in that instead of calling Nicholson a great man, he refers to him as a great psychopath, his military skills notwithstanding.

As it happens, many of them went on to lead long lives, unencumbered by guilt. In today's days, as Dalrymple says, the perpetrations of the British armies would have classified many of them as war criminals. It also clearly does not spare the British. That they did not do so is partly the reason why the British were superior in military terms.The book does give a fairly detailed account of the mutiny from the perspective of Delhi, and details the suffering of the people in some detail. If the had also focussed on the economy and developing technology, then perhaps they would still be around today. It is indeed true that the Mughals transformed themselves from a conquering dynasty to one where tolerance and artistic freedom flourished. It is really about Bahadur Shah Zafar's last days and years in the context of The Great Mutiny. The title is a bit misleading, in that while it does shed considerable light on the last days of Bahadu Shah Zafar, it is not about him and his life in detail. He lives with his wife and three children on a farm outside Delhi.This is a fine book indeed. Oates Visiting Fellow in Humanities at Princeton University. He has won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, the Ryszard Kapuscinski Award for Literary Reportage, the Hemingway Prize, the French Prix d’Astrolabe, the Wolfson Prize for History, the Scottish Book of the Year Award, the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, the Asia House Award for Asian Literature, the Vodafone Crossword Award and has three times been longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. William Dalrymple is the bestselling author of In Xanadu, City of Djinns, From the Holy Mountain, The Age of Kali, White Mughals, The Last Mughal and, most recently, Nine Lives.

The Siege of Delhi was the Raj’s Stalingrad, the end of both Mughal power and a remarkable culture. There are no lamentations or panegyrics, for the British Commissioner in charge has insisted, ‘No vesting will remain to distinguish where the last of the Great Mughals rests.’ This Mughal is Bahadur Shah Zafar II, one of the most tolerant and likeable of his remarkable dynasty who found himself leader of a violent and doomed uprising. On a dark evening in November 1862, a cheap coffin is buried in eerie silence.

The last mughal the fall of a dynasty