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In the spring of 1839, the British invaded Afghanistan for the first time. Led by lancers in scarlet cloaks and plumed shakos, nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured through the high mountain passes and re-established on the throne Shah Shuja ul-Mulk. On the way in, the British faced little resistance. But after two years of occupation, the Afghan people rose in answer to the call for jihad and the country exploded into violent rebellion. The First Anglo-Afghan War ended in Britain's greatest military humiliation of the nineteenth century: an entire army of the then most powerful nation in the world ambushed in retreat and utterly routed by poorly equipped tribesmen. Return of a King is the definitive analysis of the First Afghan War, told through the lives of unforgettable characters on all sides and using for the first time contemporary Afghan accounts of the conflict. Prize-winning and bestselling historian William Dalrymple's masterful retelling of Britain's greatest imperial disaster is a powerful and important parable of colonial ambition and cultural collision, folly and hubris, for our times.
| ISBN | 1408818302 | | DEWEY edition | DC23 | | ISBN13 | 9781408818305
(What's this?) | | Pages | 608 | | Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | | Published in | London | | Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | | Height (mm) | 234 | | Format | Hardback | | Width (mm) | 153 | | Publication date | 04 Feb 2013 | | Academic level | General | | DEWEY | 958.103 | |
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This sorry saga has been recounted many times, but never that I can recall as well as by Dalrymple. He is a master story-teller, whose special gift lies in the use of indigenous sources, so often neglected by imperial chroniclers Max Hastings, Sunday Times Enchantingly written ... In Dalrymple's usual happy style of historical narrative, applied to a fascinating, neat and highly suggestive series of events, this long and involved book will be a great success, and bring the famous story to a large new audience Philip Hensher, Spectator Of the books swooped into being by his scholarship (to which he himself has applied the adjective "obsessive"), this one is the most magnificent ... The seductive artistry of Dalrymple's narrative gift draws the reader into events that are sometimes almost unbearable, but his account is so perceptive and so warmly humane that one is never tempted to break away ... This book would be compulsive reading even if it were not a uniquely valuable history, which it is, because Dalrymple has uncovered sources never used before ... one can't put down this book without feeling that the old man is right, and that politicians who know not what they do have been at it yet again Diana Athill, Guardian Few writers could go wrong with a story populated with so many villains, rogues, politicians, swashbucklers, spies, assassins and heroes. But none would make a better job of it than William Dalrymple in his thrilling, magnificently evocative Return Of A King ... Time and again as you read the book you'll be struck, like Dalrymple, by the extraordinary parallels between that first Afghan campaign and the latest one James Delingpole, Mail on Sunday Shows all the elements we have come to expect from Dalrymple: the clear, fluid prose, the ability to give complex historical events shape, story and meaning, the use of new local sources to allow the voices of the people, in this case, of Kabul, Kohistan, the Khyber and elsewhere to be heard alongside the much-better documented accounts of the invaders, the deep knowledge and affection for the magnificently rich culture of the Mughals and their various copiers and a lack of patience with tiresome orientalist visions of the "proud Pashtun" or "noble Afghan". This is clear-eyed, non-judgemental, sober history, beautifully told Observer Both a ripping yarn and a warning from history, an epic of a past debacle echoes through the present ... William Dalrymple is a master storyteller, who breathes such passion, vivacity and animation into the historical characters of the First Anglo-Afghan war of 1839-42 that at the end of this 567-page book you feel you have marched, fought, dined and plotted with them all ... once I had finished I turned straight back to the beginning ... Return of a King is not just an animated and highly literate retelling of a chapter of early 19th-century British military history, but also a determined attempt to reach out and influence the politicians and policy-makers of our modern world Independent Brilliant ... Even 170 years later, the events described in Return of a King still have the power to shock - and so they should. It is to be hoped that any future British leader contemplating intervention in Afghanistan, or any other part of the Muslim world, will read Dalrymple's book. For while it is first and foremost a valuable contribution to the history of Afghanistan and the British Raj, it is also intended to draw parallels and convey lessons about the latest western involvement in the region - lessons, it is worth noting, that were not lost on the more intelligent British officials of the time Financial Times Pacey ... Return of a King is a work of deep scholarship, informed by the author's decades of engagement with India and extensive research in Pakistan and Afghanistan The Times A major contribution to the historiography of south-west Asia and of the British empire ... Dalrymple has resurrected an oft-told tale and brought it convincingly back  Be the first to write a customer review
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