India in the Persianate Age - Richard Maxwell Eaton

'Remarkable... Richard Eaton's brilliant book stands as an important monument to this almost forgotten world' - William Dalrymple, The 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.