The golden road

Categories:

23.99

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
A revolutionary new history of the diffusion of Indian ideas, from the award-winning, bestselling author and co-host of the chart-topping Empire podcast

‘Richly woven, highly readable … Written with passion and verve’ Spectator
‘Dazzling … Not just a historical study but also a love letter’ Guardian
An outstanding new account … The most compelling retelling we have had for generationsFinancial Times

India is the forgotten heart of the ancient world

For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilisation, creating around it a vast empire of ideas. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific.

William Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India’s oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia. For the first time, he gives a name to this spread of Indian ideas that transformed the world. From the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero), India transformed the culture and technology of its ancient world – and our world today as we know it.

Praise for William Dalrymple and The Anarchy

‘A superb historian with a visceral understanding of India’ The Times
Magnificently readable, deeply researched and richly atmospheric’ Francis Wheen, Mail on Sunday

ISBN: 9781408864425

In stock

For a millennium and a half, from about 250 BC to 1200 AD, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilisation, creating around it a vast empire of ideas, an ‘Indosphere’ where its influence was predominant. During this period, the rest of Asia was the willing recipient of a mass-transfer of Indian soft power. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific, connecting different places and ideas to one another. Like ancient Greece, ancient India came up with a set of profound answers to the big questions about what the world is, how it operates, why we are here and how we should live our lives.

Additional information

Weight0.72 kg
Dimensions23.4 × 15.3 × 4.1 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

608

Language

English

Edition

Export ed

Dewey

934 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K

Gift Vouchers

Can’t find the right book, why not give a gift card and let them find that special book. 

Learn More >

Click and Collect/Special Requests

If we don’t have the book you want, we will do our best to order it for you and often have it in a few days.

Learn More >

Receive the latest news

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Get notified about new articles

Find the right book...