The Mughal Empire dominated India politically, culturally, socially, economically and environmentally, from its foundation by Babur, a Central Asian adventurer, in 1526 to the final trial and exile of the last emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar at the hands of the British in 1858. Throughout the empire's three centuries of rise, preeminence and decline, it remained a dynamic and complex entity within and against which diverse peoples and interests conflicted. The empire's significance continues to be controversial among scholars and politicians with fresh and exciting new insights, theories and interpretations being put forward in recent years. This book engages students and general readers with a clear, lively and informed narrative of the core political events, the struggles and interactions of key individuals, groups and cultures, and of the contending historiographical arguments surrounding the Mughal Empire.

The world's largest democracy and second-most populous country, 21st century India is a dynamic nation with a thrusting economy, made up of a variety of beliefs and peoples united under one flag. Its history is a unique story of ancient empires and civilizations, some dating back to humankind's earliest history. Ancient India was home to myriad kingdoms with boundaries that were ever changing while a variety of cultures and religions have flourished over the millennia as the influence of foreign invaders and occupiers has come and gone. The country was under foreign rule from the early 1800s until the demise of the British Raj and independence in 1947. With countless languages and cultures and many religions, India is one of the world's most diverse nations. From the late 1980s, India has opened itself to the outside world, encouraging economic reform and foreign investment and is now courted by the world's leading economic and political powers, including its one-time enemy, China. It is now a major power with a burgeoning middle class, having made substantial strides in areas such as information technology. The availability of a large, skilled workforce makes it a popular choice for international companies looking to outsource work. It has launched a space programme and, famously, boasts a massive film industry, its 'Bollywood' films being amongst the most-watched in the world. Meanwhile, India still has major issues with poverty and illiteracy and campaigns have been launched to alleviate these problems. A Short History of India traces the fascinating path from the India of ancient empires and powerful kingdoms to the flourishing, vibrant nation that it is today. Praise for Gordon Kerr: 'informative, fascinating and extremely well-researched...Gordon Kerr's book is a mini masterpiece' - Rob Minshull, ABC Brisbane 'Factual and even-handed, Kerr presents a fair-minded introduction of basic Chinese history' - Booklist

Gardens take many forms, and have a variety of functions. They can serve as spaces of peace and tranquilty, a way to cultivate wildlife, or as places to develop agricultural resources. Globally, gardens have inspired, comforted, and sustained people from all walks of life, and since the Garden of Eden many iconic gardens have inspired great artists, poets, musicians, and writers. In this short history, Gordon Campbell embraces gardens in all their splendour, from parks, and fruit and vegetable gardens to ornamental gardens, and takes the reader on a globe-trotting historical journey through iconic and cultural signposts of gardens from different regions and traditions. Ranging from the gardens of ancient Persia to modern day allotments, he concludes by looking to the future of the garden in the age of global warming, and the adaptive spirit of human innovation.

Monarchies 1000 –2000 surveys a form of government whose legitimacy rests not on voluntary consensus but on age-old custom, heredity and/or religious sanction. Global in scope and comparative in approach, W. M. Spellman's survey establishes connections between monarchy as idea and practice in a variety of historical and cultural contexts across a millennium when the system was without serious rival. Spellman examines the intellectual assumptions behind different models of monarchy, tracing the ways in which each of these assumptions shifted in response to historical factors. While no human institution has retreated as rapidly in the modern period, monarchy's remarkable longevity invites us to weigh the significance of hierarchy, subordination and dependence as constants of the human experience.

Preface -- 1. The Word of Allah -- 2. Heirs to the Prophets -- 3. Defenders of Islam -- 4. The Sunni Compromise -- 5. The Shiʻi Vision -- 6. Rationalists and Radicals -- 7. Sufism Ascendant -- 8. Reason, Revelation, and Inspiration -- 9. The Age of Empire -- 10. Decline and Revival -- 11. Facing Modernity -- 12. From Modernism to Islamism -- Epilogue: Islam Today.

A groundbreaking history of how the Black Death unleashed revolutionary change across the medieval world and ushered in the modern age In 1346, a catastrophic plague beset Europe and its neighbours. The Black Death was a human tragedy that abruptly halved entire populations and caused untold suffering, but it also brought about a cultural and economic renewal on a scale never before witnessed. The World the Plague Made is a panoramic history of how the bubonic plague revolutionized labour, trade, and technology and set the stage for Europe’s global expansion. James Belich takes readers across centuries and continents to shed new light on one of history’s greatest paradoxes. Why did Europe’s dramatic rise begin in the wake of the Black Death? Belich shows how plague doubled the per capita endowment of everything even as it decimated the population. Many more people had disposable incomes. Demand grew for silks, sugar, spices, furs, gold, and slaves. Europe expanded to satisfy that demand—and plague provided the means. Labour scarcity drove more use of waterpower, wind power, and gunpowder. Technologies like water-powered blast furnaces, heavily gunned galleons, and musketry were fast-tracked by plague. A new “crew culture” of “disposable males” emerged to man the guns and galleons. Setting the rise of Western Europe in global context, Belich demonstrates how the mighty empires of the Middle East and Russia also flourished after the plague, and how European expansion was deeply entangled with the Chinese and other peoples throughout the world.

Akbar the Great is a very familiar figure to most Indians. Hailed as a brilliant warrior, a great administrator, and a visionary ruler whose ideas of pluralism and tolerance sought to unify India with all its diversity of peoples and religions, he is also an increasingly contested figure in the national discourse. And familiar though he might be, Akbar is a mystery too, locked in his own legend: a man to admire but difficult to know. What was Akbar really like—as a child, a father, a friend, a foe? What were his moods like – his anger, his melancholy, his passions and his laughter? How did a thirteen-year-old fatherless boy, surrounded by ambitious advisors and warlords, become one of the world’s most powerful monarchs; and how did he deal with his dizzying rise? Was Akbar a sceptic or did he believe he had divine, miraculous powers? With revealing psychological insights into Akbar’s complex and magnetic personality, this biography is also the story of how Akbar’s ideas and ideals of kingship evolved through his reign; of how he came to concentrate in himself both political and religious authority; of his instances of megalomania, his doubts, and his yearning for justice. Rich in detail, and with a cast of unforgettable characters, it sparkles with humor and drama too, as it vividly evokes the world he lived in. Deeply researched and beautifully written, Parvati Sharma’s portrait of Akbar the Great brings alive as never before a man imperfect and extraordinary, who ruled for fifty years and has lived in the Indian imagination for close to half a millennium.

Mughal Empire In India Is A Detailed And Comprehensive Study Of The History Of Medieval India. It Has Tapped Practically All Historical Sources Available In English. It Presents All Points Of View On Controversial Topics, Helping The Reader To Draw His Own Conclusions. Rao Bahadur G.S. Sardesai Finds The Principal Merit Of The Work In The Skilful Piecing Together Of All Available Matter And Weaving It Into A Connected Account . This Textbook Is A Real Source Of High And Systematic Knowledge. The Intelligent Use Of This Textbook Will Introduce The Student To The Genuine Historical Method . Rev. H. Heras, S.J. The Effort To Make The Student Acquainted With The Sources Is Perhaps The Most Distinct Contri¬Bution Of This Book . C.S.S. In The Journal Of Indian History

This book provides a multidisciplinary commentary on a wide range of religious traditions and their relationship to acts of violence. Hate and violence occur at every level of human interaction, as do peace and compassion. Scholars of religion have a particular obligation to make sense out of this situation, tracing its history and variables, and drawing lessons for the future. From the formative periods of the religious traditions to their application in the contemporary world, the essays in this volume interrogate the views on violence found within the traditions and provide examples of religious practices that exacerbate or ameliorate situations of conflict.

From 1501, when the first slaves arrived in Hispaniola, until the nineteenth century, some twelve million people were abducted from west Africa and shipped across thousands of miles of ocean - the infamous Middle Passage - to work in the colonies of the New World. Perhaps two million Africans died at sea. Why was slavery so widely condoned, during most of this period, by leading lawyers, religious leaders, politicians and philosophers? How was it that the educated classes of the western world were prepared for so long to accept and promote an institution that would later ages be condemned as barbaric? Exploring these and other questions - and the slave experience on the sugar, rice, coffee and cotton plantations - Kenneth Morgan discusses the rise of a distinctively Creole culture; slave revolts, including the successful revolution in Haiti (1791-1804); and the rise of abolitionism, when the ideas of Montesquieu, Wilberforce, Quakers and others led to the slave trade's systemic demise. At a time when the menace of human trafficking is of increasing concern worldwide, this timely book reflects on the deeper motivations of slavery as both ideology and merchant institution.