Why Rushdie was silenced in Jaipur
A planned videolink with Rushdie at the Jaipur Literary Festival presented the directors with an impossible decision: cause a riot or uphold a vital principleOn Tuesday afternoon this week I was faced with one of the most difficult decisions I have eve...
Cables From Kabul by Sherard Cowper-Coles
Sherard Cowper-Coles, once our man in Kabul, has written the best account yet of another botched western missionIn April last year, the British ambassador to Afghanistan invited me for a picnic in the Panjshir. I was told to report to the British Embas...
The Inordinately Strange Life of Dyce Sombre by Michael H Fisher | Book review
William Dalrymple marvels at the tragic and extraordinary life of Britain's first Anglo-Indian MPAt around 4am on 21 September 1843, a man recently certified as a lunatic escaped from his Liverpool confinement, gave his keepers the slip and disappeared...
Pashas: Traders and Travellers in the Islamic World by James Mather
William Dalrymple applauds an exemplary study of the 16th-century Levant Company and England's dealings with the mighty Ottoman empire
For 200 years, from the mid-15th century, the Ottoman Empire was the most powerful force in all Eurasia and Constantinople was the Mediterranean's greatest port. The sultan and his viziers...
