Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire

“The hapless ambassador to the second-order monarch finds himself in these extraordinary palaces, where he hangs around and it’s not even clear that he’s going to be given an audience. Das is conjuring this world. Every sentence gives you a present. It’s absolutely wonderful. It’s constructed like a Swiss watch: everything locks in and returns. One moment you find yourself in Jacobean London, and then, the next moment, you’re encountering something oriental and remote.” Read more...

The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2024 Duff Cooper Prize

Susan Brigden, Historian

“This is an excellent book with extraordinary historical depth. It focuses on the moment when Britain encountered the Mughal court in northern India, through the journey of the British envoy Thomas Rowe. He left Stuart Britain, which was chaotic and in conflict about its own identity. I would say that Das shows us how impoverished Britain was in contrast with Mughal India. Rowe arrives in India and Das follows his journey on a boat—a difficult and hazardous trip at the time. He then moves on land to reach the amazing Mughal court where successive Mughal emperors lived.” Read more...

The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding

Madawi Al-Rasheed, Anthropologist