William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple is a British historian, travel writer and broadcaster whose career has been closely associated with South Asia. He is also a co-founder of the Jaipur Literature Festival and co-hosts the history podcast Empire with Anita Anand. His early books include the travel narratives In Xanadu, City of Djinns and From the Holy Mountain.

His later work turns archival research into character-led narrative history. India, Afghanistan and the entangled histories of Asian and European power recur throughout his books. White Mughals follows the relationship between East India Company official James Achilles Kirkpatrick and Khair un-Nissa in Hyderabad; The Last Mughal reconstructs Delhi and the fall of Bahadur Shah Zafar during the uprising of 1857; Return of a King examines Britain’s first invasion of Afghanistan.

White Mughals won the 2003 Wolfson History Prize, while The Last Mughal received the 2007 Duff Cooper Prize. The British Academy awarded Dalrymple its President’s Medal in 2018, recognizing his literary work and his role in founding the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Start with The Anarchy. It explains how the East India Company changed from a commercial enterprise into a territorial power as Mughal authority fractured, bringing financiers, soldiers and Indian rulers into the account. It is a strong introduction to Dalrymple’s central interests: corporate power, imperial violence and the people caught inside large political transformations.