Return of a King - The Battle for Afghanistan

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.Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2013, R rn 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.

Report

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

Product details

• Authors: William Dalrymple, Dalrymple William
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 31.01.2014
• EAN: 9781408831595
• ISBN: 978-1-4088-3159-5
• No. of pages: 567
• Dimensions: 128 mm x 197 mm x 39 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Modern era up to 1918; Non-fiction book; Non-fiction book > History > Middle Ages; Afghanistan, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, CE period up to c 1500, c 1500 onwards to present day, Asian History, Battles and campaigns