Colin Amery

Soaring splendour

issue 17 December 2011

The glorious monuments built in India by the Mughal emperors, from Babur in the early 16th century to Bahadur Shah Zafar II in the mid-19th century, have long deserved a comprehensive illustrated survey in one volume.

George Michell is the ideal author. He is both a great scholar and a fervent communicator on many aspect of India’s cultural history. He has worked as a hands-on archaeologist on major Indian sites and recently established a Deccan Foundation to protect the wonders of that little-known region.

He has been extremely well served in this magnificent book by the photographs of Amit Pasricha, who describes himself as a ‘panoramic photographer’. His photographs are staggeringly beautiful and impossible to praise too highly.

The book principally concentrates on imperial centres of power — Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri and Lahore — and the descriptions of the forts, palaces, tombs, mosques and gardens are supported by newly commissioned plans and maps drawn by Rahul Singh.

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