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Koh-in-noor : the history of the world's most infamous diamond / William Dalrymple, Anita Anand.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: London : Bloomsbury, 2017Copyright date: ©2017Description: vi, 335 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some colour), map ; 23 cmContent type:
  • text
  • still image
  • cartographic image
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781408888841
  • 140888884X
  • 163557076X
  • 9781635570762
Other title:
  • Kohinoor
Subject(s):
Contents:
Part 1: The jewel in the throne -- The Indian prehistory of the Koh-i-Noor -- The mughals and the Koh-i-Noor -- Nader Shah: the Koh-i-Noor goes to Iran -- the Durranis: the Koh-i-Noor in Afghanistan -- Ranjit Singh: the Koh-i-Noor in Lahore -- Part 2: The jewel in the crown -- City of ash -- The boy king -- Passage to England -- The Great Exhibition -- The first cut -- Queen Victoria's "Loyal subject" -- The jewel and the crown -- "We must take back the Koh-i-Noor."
Summary: "The Koh-i-noor is the world's most famous diamond, but it has always had a fog of mystery around it. Now, using previously untranslated Sanskrit, Persian and Urdu sources, and the discoveries of modern gemologists to reconstruct its original form, William Dalrymple and Anita Ananad blow away the legends to reveal its true history--stranger, and more violent, than any fiction."--Jacket.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 553.82 D151 Available 33111008861896
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world.

On 29 March 1849, the ten-year-old Maharajah of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great Fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over to the British East India Company in a formal Act of Submission to Queen Victoria not only swathes of the richest land in India, but also arguably the single most valuable object in the subcontinent- the celebrated Koh-i Noor diamond. The Mountain of Light.

The history of the Koh-i-Noor that was then commissioned by the British may have been one woven together from gossip of Delhi Bazaars, but it was to be become the accepted version. Only now is it finally challenged, freeing the diamond from the fog of mythology which has clung to it for so long. The resulting history is one of greed, murder, torture, colonialism and appropriation through an impressive slice of south and central Asian history. It ends with the jewel in its current controversial setting- in the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Masterly, powerful and erudite, this is history at its most compelling and invigorating.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-227) and index.

"The Koh-i-noor is the world's most famous diamond, but it has always had a fog of mystery around it. Now, using previously untranslated Sanskrit, Persian and Urdu sources, and the discoveries of modern gemologists to reconstruct its original form, William Dalrymple and Anita Ananad blow away the legends to reveal its true history--stranger, and more violent, than any fiction."--Jacket.

Part 1: The jewel in the throne -- The Indian prehistory of the Koh-i-Noor -- The mughals and the Koh-i-Noor -- Nader Shah: the Koh-i-Noor goes to Iran -- the Durranis: the Koh-i-Noor in Afghanistan -- Ranjit Singh: the Koh-i-Noor in Lahore -- Part 2: The jewel in the crown -- City of ash -- The boy king -- Passage to England -- The Great Exhibition -- The first cut -- Queen Victoria's "Loyal subject" -- The jewel and the crown -- "We must take back the Koh-i-Noor."

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