SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2013
'As taut and richly embroidered as a great novel . . . a masterpiece' Sunday Telegraph
'Dazzling' Sunday Times | 'Magnificent' Guardian | 'Sparkling' Daily Telegraph
A towering history of the first Afghan War by bestselling historian William Dalrymple.
In the spring of 1839, Britain invaded Afghanistan for the first time. 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.
Using a range of forgotten Afghan and Indian sources, William Dalrymple's masterful retelling of Britain's greatest imperial disaster is a powerful parable of colonial ambition and cultural collision, folly and hubris.
Return of a King is history at its most urgent and important.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2013
'Dazzling' Sunday Times
'Magnificent' Guardian
'Sparkling' Daily Telegraph
In the spring of 1839, Britain invaded Afghanistan for the first time. 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.
Using a range of forgotten Afghan and Indian sources, William Dalrymple's masterful retelling of Britain's greatest imperial disaster is a powerful parable of colonial ambition and cultural collision, folly and hubris. Return of a King is history at its most urgent and important.
'As taut and richly embroidered as a great novel ... this book is a masterpiece' Sunday Telegraph
Sensationally good . . . Dalrymple writes the kind of history few historians can match . . . Drawing on Afghan, Russian, and Indian sources, [Dalrymple] tells
a truly epic story of imperial ambition and hubris with profound lessons for our own times . . . I doubt that I'll read a better written or more important history book all year
