From the author of the Samuel Johnson prize-shortlisted ‘Return of a King’, the romantic and ultimately tragic tale of a passionate love affair that transcended all the cultural, religious and political boundaries of its time.James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of Hyderabad when he met Khair un-Nissa – ‘Most Excellent among Women’ – the great-niece of the Prime Minister of Hyderabad. He fell in love with her and overcame many obstacles to marry her, con...

LONGLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE'Beautifully written, ridiculously erudite, warm and open-hearted' The Times'Compelling and poignant' Guardian'This is travel writing at its best' ObserverInternationally bestselling William Dalrymple takes us to the heart of an undiscovered India.A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasio...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2013'As taut and richly embroidered as a great novel . . . a masterpiece' Sunday Telegraph'Dazzling' Sunday Times | 'Magnificent' Guardian | 'Sparkling' Daily TelegraphA towering history of the first Afghan War by bestselling historian William Dalrymple.In the spring of 1839, Britain invaded Afghanistan for the first t...

**INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERUSA TODAY BESTSELLERWinner of the Mark Lynton History Prize 2026 * A Kirkus Reviews Best History Book of 2025 * A Library Journal Best Book of the Year * An NPR Book We Loved This YearThe instant New York Times bestseller and international sensation-a sparkling, soaring history of ideas, tracing South Asia's underappreciated role in producing the world as we know it.**For a mille...

William Dalrymple’s award-winning first book: his classic, fiercely intelligent and wonderfully entertaining account of his journey across Marco Polo’s 700-year-old route from Jerusalem to Xanadu, the summer palace of Kubla Khan.At the age of twenty-two, Dalrymple left his college in Cambridge to travel to the ruins of Kubla Khan’s stately pleasure dome in Xanadu. As he and his companions travel across the width of Asia—crossing through Acre, Aleppo, Tabriz, Tashkurgan, and other m...

Finalist for the Cundill History PrizeONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEARNAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY The Wall Street Journal and NPR“Superb … A vivid and richly detailed story … worth reading by everyone.” -The New York Times Book ReviewFrom the bestselling author of Return of a King

WINNER OF THE DUFF COOPER MEMORIAL PRIZE | LONGLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE'Indispensable reading on both India and the Empire' Daily Telegraph'Brims with life, colour and complexity . . . outstanding' Evening Standard'A compulsively readable masterpiece' Brian Urquhart, The New York Review of BooksA stunning and bloody history of nineteenth-century Indi...

An eminent historian looks to the present and future of Afghanistan as the U.S. withdraws from the longest war in its history. THE BROOKINGS ESSAY: In the spirit of its commitment to high-quality, independent research, the Brookings Institution has commissioned works on major topics of public policy by distinguished authors, including Brookings scholars. The Brookings Essay is a multi-platform product aimed to engage readers in open dialogue and debate. The views expressed, however, are so...

William Dalrymple, who wrote so magically about India in ‘City of Djinns’, returns to the country in a series of remarkable essays.Featured in its pages are 15-year-old guerrilla girls and dowager Maharanis; flashy Bombay drinks parties and violent village blood feuds; a group of vegetarian terrorists intent on destroying India’s first Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet; and a palace where port and cigars are still carried to guests on a miniature silver steam train.Dalrymple me...

A rich blend of history and spirituality, adventure and politics, laced with the thread of black comedy familiar to readers of William Dalrymple’s previous work.In AD 587, two monks, John Moschos and Sophronius the Sophist, embarked on an extraordinary journey across the Byzantine world, from the shores of the Bosphorus to the sand dunes of Egypt. Their aim: to collect the wisdom of the sages and mystics of the Byzantine East before their fragile world shattered under the eruption ...

In the spring of A.D. 587, John Moschos and his pupil Sophronius the Sophist embarked on a remarkable expedition across the entire Byzantine world, traveling from the shores of Bosphorus to the sand dunes of Egypt. Using Moschos’s writings as his guide and inspiration, the acclaimed travel writer William Dalrymple retraces the footsteps of these two monks, providing along the way a moving elegy to the slowly dying civilization of Eastern Christianity and to the people who are struggling to...

One of the most successful, influential and acclaimed travel books of recent years from the author of ‘Return of a King’, which has been shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize.At the age of twenty-two, William Dalrymple left his college in Cambridge to travel to the ruins of Kublai Khan’s stately pleasure dome in Xanadu. This is an account of a quest which took him and his companions across the width of Asia, along dusty, forgotten roads, through villages and cities full of unexp...