Return of a King
Synopsis
In the spring of 1839, the British invaded Afghanistan for the first time. Led by lancers in scarlet cloaks and plumed shakos, nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured through the passes and re-established on the throne Shah Shuja ul-Mulk. On the way in, the British faced little resistance. But after little more than two years, the Afghans rose in answer to the call for jihad and Afghanistan exploded into rebellion. The First Anglo-Afghan War ended in Britain’s greatest imperial disaster of the nineteenth century: an entire army of what was then the most powerful military nation in the world ambushed in the snows of the high passes, and there routed and destroyed by simply-equipped Afghan tribesmen.
This first disastrous entanglement in Afghanistan has important lessons for the present. Using a wide range of new sources from Afghan, Russian, Indian and Pakistani archives, including a series of previously untranslated Afghan epic poems and biographies, Return of a King is the definitive analysis of the First Anglo-Afghan War, and an important parable of colonial ambition and cultural collision for our times.
[Video] William Dalrymple introduces 'Return of a King - The Battle for Afghanistan'
[Video] William Dalrymple talks with Fiammetta Rocco of the Economist about 'Return of a King - The Battle for Afghanistan'
Editions
Reviews and Quotes
- Alexander McCall Smith, New Statesman Books of the Year
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... read full review - Fiammetta Rocco, The Economist
- “Dalrymple, probably the best known British historian of India, has written eight acclaimed books on a wide variety of subjects, but this is the book he was born to write.”
... read full review - John Darwin, The New York Times
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... read full review - David Gilmour, New York Review of Books
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... read full review - Brian Sewell, Evening Standard Books of the Year
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- Sir Max Hastings, Metro Books of the Year
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... read full review - Patrick Bishop, Standpoint
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... read full review - Justin Marozzi, The Evening Standard
- “This is vintage Dalrymple: warp-speed historical narrative, meticulously researched. . . . My only regret reading this wonderful history is that it was not published a decade earlier.”
... read full review - Barnaby Rogerson, The Independent
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... read full review - Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, New Statesman
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... read full review - Jason Burke, The Observer
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... read full review - From the print edition, The Economist
- “A masterful history . . . As the latest occupying force in Afghanistan negotiates its exit, this chronicle seems all too relevant now. . . . The signal achievement of this work is that it makes a nearly two-century-old war seem disturbingly fresh.”
... read full review - Maggie Fergusson, Intelligent Life
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... read full review - Michael Fathers, The Wall Street Journal
- “Mr. Dalrymple's writing is sly, charming and clever. His histories read like novels. … This latest book delights and shocks as he points a finger at both sides for their deceit, treachery and cruelty.”
... read full review - Michael Korda, The Daily Beast
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... read full review - Michael Dirda, Book Forum
- “By turns epic, thrilling, suspenseful, and utterly appalling, at once deeply researched and beautifully paced, Return of a King should win every prize for which it’s eligible.”
... read full review - Bron Sibree, The West Australian
- “Hailed by the British literary establishment as his best book”
... read full review - David Robinson, The Scotsman
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... read full review - Sebastian Shakespeare, Tatler
- “This is a monumentally important book.....Exemplary historian that he is, Dalrymple has discovered hitherto unknown sources... This is history as it should be written: revisionist, readable and rollicking.”
- Rosemary Goring, Sunday Herald
- “A meticulous historian and felicitous writer, Dalrymple is also a deep thinker. This is one history book that matters for making sense of Afghanistan, and Britain, today as well as in the past.”
... read full review - S. Prasannarajan, India Today Review
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... read full review - Tom Tivnan, The Bookseller
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... read full review - Pavan K Varma, Business Standard
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... read full review - David Robinson, Scotland on Sunday
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... read full review - Saurabh Kumar Shahi, Sunday Indian
- “To call it anything less than a triumph would be an understatement.”
... read full review - Hugh MacDonald, Sunday Herald
- “[A] marvellous book . . . brilliant, exact language . . . There is much in Dalrymple’s superb book that has contemporary resonance.”
... read full review - Edward Burke, Dublin Review of Books
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... read full review - Matthew Price, The National
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... read full review - Somnath Batabyal, The Sunday Guardian
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... read full review - Michael Keating, The World Today
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