William Dalrymple

Last night, I went to a lecture by William Dalrymple, a prizewinning popular historian of British India. Having him come here to Halifax is quite a coup, I think. He spoke about his latest book, The Last Mughal: Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857. Dalrymple is one of those historians who has pulled off that rare feat: writing works of scholarly seriousness while retaining the air of an engaging storyteller, and attracting a large popular audience while doing so.

I'd have loved the chance to talk to him about the book - particularly, about his extensive use of a hitherto-unknown, vast archive of primary source material about the "Indian Mutiny" of 1857, written mostly in Persian and Urdu and which lay in the Indian National Archives, largely untouched, for decades. I would also have liked to hear his thoughts on the presence of British women in India (one of my own research specialties). But the lecture hall was packed out, so I didn't get the opportunity - and he was whisked away to a reception afterwards. Still, since it's now a fairly rare occurrence for me to come into contact with people like this, I was pretty satisfied with my lot.