This is a fascinating illustrated book on the often elaborate and arresting labels used by British textile manufacturers when exporting to India during the Raj.
Gorgeous and generous survey arranged by region. Includes very rare pieces. Published to the same high standard as Prestel's 'Textiles of Japan' a couple of years ago.
Chintz, calico and muslin; paisley, embroidery; jodhpurs, turbans - all have been used by designers such as Schiaparelli, Poiret, Balmain, Rhodes, Saint Laurent, Gauliter, McQueen...
Garments to tents in South Asia in the C16th-C17th. Richly illustrated, this book shows cloth participated in both political and social spheres, and reflected seasonal rhythms.
First edition in very good condition with very good+ dust jacket, with original press release laid in. There are some light scratches on the jacket front and a little shelf wear along the lo... read more
From Buddhist, Jain and Hindu temples through to Islamic and European centres of worship and commerce, this two volume set covers two-thousand years of Indian architectural history.
Vol. 1... read more
From the author of the best book on Dreyfus, this is a biography of the Indian monk who inspired Freud, Gandhi, and Tagore and introduced Westerners to yoga and the Vedanta.
800 years of cave paintings, from the C2nd BC to the C6th CE: a revised edition with digitally restored images, and a new introduction by Dalrymple who has been researching the history of Bu... read more
A fascinating exploration of travel in C17th India: merchant-cum-gentleman Thomas Roe is whisked away as ambassador to Mughal India where he plays the dangerous (and often disappointing) gam... read more
Indian folk rituals and rites, customs and celebrations, presented through a sequence of photographic portraits. With contributions by Anuradha Roy, Catherine Clement and Kuha Kopariha.
An anthology of the writings by the often overlooked women of the Raj, many of whom flourished in India - Fanny Parks, Emily Eden et alia. A fascinating counterpoint to the stereotypical vie... read more
The 40-year relationship between the prodigious writer and scholar (biographer of Gandhi, amongst other things, and a JS customer) and his original editor at Oxford University Press.
The British empire observed through the lens of a single day: the 29th September 1923, when the Mandate for Palestine became law and the British empire reached its maximum extent, just as i... read more
Amrit Kaur was a Punjabi princess who lived in Paris in the 1930s, and who sold her jewellery to help save Jews. Arrested by the Gestapo, she died in a concentration camp.
Unlike Dalrymple's The Anarchy, this deals just with the East India Company's early years. Howarth argues that it was more European than English in spirit.
A brilliant narrative of the interconnected lives of two Renaissance Portuguese men whose travels to India and China unseated contemporary certainties. Dazzling.
The author's mother came from a Sikh family that fled the Punjab in Partition; later she moved to Berlin and Washington. A fine memoir of family whose identity and roots have been complicate... read more
How the daughter of Babur, first Mughal Emperor, wrangled her way out of the harem (for a while) to travel around India, to Persia and beyond. Based on her own account.
A first edition, first impression of William Dalrymple's evocative and riveting portrayal of the last days of the Mughal empire and of Zafar, its last emperor. The book is in fine condition ... read more
He ruled an area of the Indian subcontinent greater than anyone until the British 2000 years later; famously he renounced war for Buddhism and promoted religious toleration throughout his mu... read more
Indian family drama revolving around an ambitious and bright but easily distracted daughter who hasn't yet heard that her father has died. Fraught, lyrical, set against the backdrop of relig... read more
If you want to read one book about inequality and its ramifications for all societies, now and in the past, let it be this. By a former Pulitzer winner.
Cauliflower in almond and saffron masala, paneer and apricot koftas; small plates, large plates, breads, relishes...The first of a a new series from Bloomsbury, catching the wave of vegetari... read more
The first full biography (with access to his papers given by his family) to this Indian cultural icon and significant C20th musician, who influenced the Beatles, Coltrane, Glass, Menuhin.