William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple is a Scottish historian and author whose books explore South Asian history, including The Anarchy and The Last Mughal.

Connect

East India Company: The English joint-stock company that became a major political and territorial power in South Asia. Its rise from trading company to ruling power is the subject of The Anarchy.
The Anarchy: William Dalrymple’s 2019 history of the East India Company’s expansion and conquest in India. It traces the company’s transformation into a territorial power.
Scotland: A country in the north of Great Britain with a distinct legal, educational, and cultural history. Dalrymple was born and raised in Scotland.
Olivia Fraser: A Scottish artist known for paintings and drawings inspired by India and its artistic traditions. She is Dalrymple’s wife and has collaborated with him on books about India.
Popular history: Historical writing designed to communicate research to a broad, nonspecialist audience. Dalrymple’s narrative books bring archival history to a wide readership.
Mughal Empire: An early modern empire that ruled much of the Indian subcontinent from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Dalrymple’s histories examine its culture, rulers, and decline.
The Last Mughal: William Dalrymple’s 2006 history of Bahadur Shah Zafar, his court, and the Indian Rebellion of 1857. It reconstructs the final years of Mughal rule through courtly and colonial records.
Edinburgh: The capital city of Scotland and a historic center of publishing and education. Dalrymple studied at the University of Edinburgh.
Amitav Ghosh: An Indian novelist and essayist whose fiction and nonfiction often engage with South Asian history. His historical writing offers a prominent literary counterpart to Dalrymple’s.
Orientalism: The study and representation of Asian societies through traditions of Western scholarship and cultural power. Debates about representation inform how colonial-era sources and perspectives are read in his work.