Eraly Abraham. Last Spring: The Lives and Times of Great Mughals

Penguin Books, 2013. — 944 p.A vivid, encyclopedic and readable book on the Mughal empire--the Mongol-descended leaders who pretty much ran the Indian show from the sixteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. Eraly's style has the rhythms of Indian-inflected English, but he's a good storyteller: he keeps the huge cast in focus and keeps the empire moving along. The first half of the book goes through the bios of the first six Mughal leaders; the second half treats of the psyche and accomplishments of the culture they created. Eraly deals with things very non-sensationally, but be prepared: great architecture and poetry and all, it's a time and culture of almost constant warfare, internecine betrayal on a Roman scale and mind-boggling, more-than-Oriental hypocrisy.