The Last Mughal

The Last Mughal has been longlisted the BBC 4 Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction, 2007

A stunning and bloody history of nineteenth-century India and the reign of the Last Mughal by the bestselling author of White MughalsOn a dark evening in November 1862, a cheap coffin is buried in eerie silence. 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. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj's Stalingrad, the end of both Mughal power and a remarkable culture.