Koh-i-Noor
The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond
1st Edition
Published on 15. June 2017
352 pages
978-1-4088-8885-8 (ISBN)
Description
'Riveting. This highly readable and entertaining book ... finally sets the record straight on the history of the Koh-i-Noor' Tarquin Hall, Sunday Times
'Dynamic, original and supremely readable' Maya Jasanoff, Guardian
The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i-Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world.
On 29 March 1849, the ten-year-old maharaja of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over great swathes of the richest country in India in a formal Act of Submission to a private corporation, the East India Company. He was also compelled to hand over to the British monarch, Queen Victoria, perhaps the single most valuable object on the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond. The Mountain of Light.
The history of the Koh-i-Noor may have been one woven together from gossip of Delhi bazaars, but it was to become the accepted version. Only now is it finally challenged, freeing the diamond from the fog of mythology that has clung to it for so long. The resulting history is one of greed, murder, torture, colonialism and appropriation told through an impressive slice of south and central Asian history. It ends with the jewel in its current controversial setting: in the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, which was deemed too contentious to be used by Camilla, the Queen Consort, in King Charles's coronation.
Masterly, powerful and erudite, this is history at its most compelling and invigorating.
'Dynamic, original and supremely readable' Maya Jasanoff, Guardian
The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i-Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world.
On 29 March 1849, the ten-year-old maharaja of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over great swathes of the richest country in India in a formal Act of Submission to a private corporation, the East India Company. He was also compelled to hand over to the British monarch, Queen Victoria, perhaps the single most valuable object on the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond. The Mountain of Light.
The history of the Koh-i-Noor may have been one woven together from gossip of Delhi bazaars, but it was to become the accepted version. Only now is it finally challenged, freeing the diamond from the fog of mythology that has clung to it for so long. The resulting history is one of greed, murder, torture, colonialism and appropriation told through an impressive slice of south and central Asian history. It ends with the jewel in its current controversial setting: in the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, which was deemed too contentious to be used by Camilla, the Queen Consort, in King Charles's coronation.
Masterly, powerful and erudite, this is history at its most compelling and invigorating.
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Illustrations
2 x 8pp colour insert
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-8885-8 (9781408888858)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
05/2018
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€19.00
Available immediately
Book
06/2017
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€41.03
Article exhausted; check different version
Persons
William Dalrymple wrote the highly acclaimed bestseller In Xanadu when he was just twenty-two. Since then, he has had seven more books published and won numerous awards for his writing, including the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, the Duff Cooper Memorial Award, the Hemingway Prize and the Ryszard Kapuscinski Award for Literary Reportage. He lives with his wife and three children on a farm outside Delhi.
Anita Anand has been a radio and television journalist for over twenty years. On BBC television she has presented, among other shows, Daily Politics, The Heaven and Earth Show and Newsnight. She is currently the presenter of Any Answers on BBC Radio 4. Her first book, Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, received to widespread acclaim. She lives in West London.
Anita Anand has been a radio and television journalist for over twenty years. On BBC television she has presented, among other shows, Daily Politics, The Heaven and Earth Show and Newsnight. She is currently the presenter of Any Answers on BBC Radio 4. Her first book, Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, received to widespread acclaim. She lives in West London.
Content
- Cover
- Praise for Koh-i-Noor
- A Note on the Authors
- By the same authors
- Title Page
- Contents
- Map
- Introduction
- Part 1 The Jewel in the Throne
- 1 The Indian Prehistory of the Koh-i-Noor
- 2 The Mughals and the Koh-i-Noor
- 3 Nader Shah: The Koh-i-Noor Goes to Iran
- 4 The Durranis: The Koh-i-Noor in Afghanistan
- 5 Ranjit Singh: The Koh-i-Noor in Lahore
- Part 2 The Jewel in the Crown
- 6 City of Ash
- 7 The Boy King
- 8 Passage to England
- 9 The Great Exhibition
- 10 The First Cut
- 11 Queen Victoria's 'Loyal Subject'
- 12 The Jewel and the Crown
- 13 'We Must Take Back the Koh-i-Noor'
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgements
- Index
- Advert Page
- Plate Section
- Copyright Page
