The Golden Road

Synopsis

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.

Reviews and Quotes

Tanjil Rashid, Financial Times

“An outstanding history of the trade routes that linked a civilisation’s wealth and wisdom to the world beyond.”
... read full review

John Keay, Literary Review

“The breadth of Dalrymple’s research is a revelation and a delight.”
... read full review

Ferdinand Mount, London Review of Books

“Dalrymple’s book has deeper and even more provoking resonances, which indirectly challenge the way history is usually written.”
... read full review

Allan Massie, The Scotsman

“This is a wonderful book. Read it through in delight, acquiring knowledge, perhaps even wisdom. Then you will surely return to read much of it again.”
... read full review

Melanie McDonagh, Independent

“The Golden Road is, then, a multifarious and engaging narrative, which, like Indian trade, takes us in many directions, peppered with lively stories and charismatic individuals. It will make you look at the world differently.”
... read full review

Fara Dabhoiwala, The Guardian

“Dalrymple is a born storyteller, with a wonderful facility for expounding complex events with verve and clarity. Like any successful synthesis, his text draws on vast reading as well as a keen eye for telling details. Yet it’s also a deeply personal work”
... read full review