3 Review(s)

ABOUT THE SET The first volume attempt to reconstruct the story of the fall of the Mughal Empire from the invasion of Nadir Shah in 1739 to the fall of the Emperor Ahmad Shah by synthesising the Persian, Marathi, English, French, Hindi, Rajasthani and Sanskrit sources. The second volume covers eighteen eventful years in the history of India. The dominating theme is the Afghan-Maratha contest for the lordship of Delhi and abrupt rise and fall of the Jat Kingdom of Bharatpur. The many dark corners in the history of this period have been lighted up by the profusion of Maratha records and contemporary Persian works here used for the first time. The third volume examines the Delhi monarchy from the entrance of Shah Alam II into his capital in 1772 to the bloody tragedy of 1778. The dominating figure was Mahadji Sindhia. The analysis presented here from a dense and tangled jungle of historical materials is well-structured. It provides precise facts for many issues that have been presented in impressionistic terms. The fourth volume is an attempt to examine the extinction of the empire covering the period from 1789 to 1803. Main topics explored deal with Sindhia-Holkar rivalry, European military adventures, Jaswant Holkar, civil war in Maharashtra, Anglo-Maratha war, the defeat of Sindhia and the last chapter discusses contrast of Mughal imperialism with the English, changes in social and economic life and Indian Renaissance under British rule.