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The Golden Road by William Dalrymple
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The Golden Road

How Ancient India Transformed the World

$28.35

Available for pre-order
April 29, 2025

Narrator William Dalrymple

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Length 13 hours 54 minutes
Language English
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Bloomsbury presents The Golden Road, written and read by William Dalrymple.

The internationally bestselling author of The Anarchy returns with a sparkling, soaring history of ideas, tracing South Asia’s under-recognized role in producing the world as we know it.

For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilization, 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.

In The Golden Road, 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.

William Dalrymple is one of Britain’s great historians and the bestselling author of the Wolfson Prize-winning White Mughals, The Last Mughal, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and the Hemingway and Kapuscinski Prize-winning Return of a King. A frequent broadcaster, he has written and presented three television series, one of which won the Grierson Award for Best Documentary Series at BAFTA. He has also won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, the Foreign Correspondent of the Year at the FPA Media Awards, and been awarded five honorary doctorates. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and has held visiting fellowships at Princeton, Brown and All Souls, University of Oxford. He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker and the Guardian. In 2018 he was presented with the prestigious President’s Medal by the British Academy for his outstanding literary achievement and for co-founding the Jaipur Literature Festival. He is the co-host of chart-topping podcast Empire with Anita Anand. William lives with his wife and three children on a goat farm outside Delhi.

William Dalrymple is one of Britain’s great historians and the bestselling author of the Wolfson Prize-winning White Mughals, The Last Mughal, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and the Hemingway and Kapuscinski Prize-winning Return of a King. A frequent broadcaster, he has written and presented three television series, one of which won the Grierson Award for Best Documentary Series at BAFTA. He has also won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, the Foreign Correspondent of the Year at the FPA Media Awards, and been awarded five honorary doctorates. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and has held visiting fellowships at Princeton, Brown and All Souls, University of Oxford. He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker and the Guardian. In 2018 he was presented with the prestigious President’s Medal by the British Academy for his outstanding literary achievement and for co-founding the Jaipur Literature Festival. He is the co-host of chart-topping podcast Empire with Anita Anand. William lives with his wife and three children on a goat farm outside Delhi.

Audiobook details

Narrator:
William Dalrymple

ISBN:
9781639734689

Length:
13 hours 54 minutes

Language:
English

Publisher:
Bloomsbury Publishing

Publication date:

Edition:
Unabridged

Libro.fm rank:
#4,879 Overall

Genre rank:
#355 in History

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Reviews

[A] magisterial and energetic account . . . This first-rate work is a must-read for any history lover. Marvelous. Dalrymple’s writing is always animated, enlivened by color plates that allow readers to readily envision the sights evoked here. A passionate tribute to the glories—and influence—of ancient India. Dazzling . . . Not just a historical study but also a love letter. An outstanding new account . . . The most compelling retelling we have had for generations. This enchanting work of ancient history offers an important backdrop to understanding contemporary India.… The book might be considered a riposte to both right-wing and left-wing historiography in India; right-wing historians make fantastic claims that cloak India’s real and substantial achievements, while those on the left prioritize social history in a way that displaces intellectual achievement. Dalrymple finds another India in the past: open to trade, tolerant, scientific, creative, and universalist. Historian Dalrymple’s comprehensive and meticulously researched examination of ancient India reveals momentous and ubiquitous influences.... When considered holistically, as Dalrymple does so well, it’s clear that India’s impacts cannot be understated and have shaped the world for thousands of years. Expand reviews
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