Through the Looking Glass: Will Dalrymple's Rising

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The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple It's hard to know where to begin...everyone's got a favourite Dalrymple, whether it's City of Djinns, or In Xanadu, or even White Mughals... His latest, The Last Mughal, is a tour de force, a fluid story that just brings alive the Rising of 1857 in Delhi in a way at least I haven't read before. (But then again, maybe the more historically-oriented have their own favourites, so do write in and let us know!) So Dalrymple has been in and out of controversy, with various claims by and against by Indian historians (many of whom would rather not acknowledge him as one of their own) and his own claims that Indian historians serve the interests of Indian historians best, not the general reader... no this is not a debate on that, nor am I qualified to judge...It's precisely as a general reader....