The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i-Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world. 29 March 1849, Lahore. In a formal Act of Submission, the ten-year-old Maharajah of the Punjab handed over great parts of the richest country in India to the British East India Company. He was also compelled to hand over to the British monarch, Queen Victoria, perhaps the single most valuable object on the subcontinent : the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond.
The history of the Koh-i-Noor that was then conjured into being by the British may have been woven together from the gossip of Delhi bazaars, but it became the accepted version. Only now is it finally challenged, freeing the diamond from the fog of mythology that has clung to it for so long. The resulting history is one of greed, murder, torture, colonialism and appropriation that cuts through an impressive swathe of south and central Asian history.
Masterly, powerful and erudite, this is history at its most compelling and invigorating.