The “Sepoy Rebellion” of 1857, which marks the formal beginning of British colonial rule over India, has long been the subject of historical inquiry. Colonial historiography has portrayed the rebellion as a disorganized uprising among Indian natives in need of British governance, while nationalist historiography has referenced the rebellion as a significant move in the direction of independence. William Dalrymple uses documents from India's National Archives to draw out the voices of the poets, craftsmen, shopkeepers, and citizens of Delhi whose lives were irrevocably altered by the uprising, and who witnessed the loss of both their cherished city and a familiar way of life. Central to these voices is the haunting figure of the last Mughal king, Bahadur Shah Zafar, himself a poet and a reluctant symbol around which both Hindus and Muslims organized their opposition to British rule. Dalrymple's carefully researched portrayal of the events of 1857 is poignant, startling, and evocative.

Dalrymple argues that the uprising of 1857 was neither cohesive nor singular; rather, several acts and theaters of resistance took place concurrently. Many citizens of Delhi initially saw the uprising as a series of riots and disturbances and did not welcome the sepoys from the United Provinces and Oudh into a city they believed to possess a degree of sophistication, history, and majesty that distinguished it from the rest of India. Even though he lacked actual power, Bahadur Shah Zafar's presence in Delhi added to the city's fierce pride in its past. As the uprising gained momentum, the act of invoking the name of the king and, implicitly, the charisma of the Mughals, much to British surprise, served to unite disparate populations across India. However, even though the uprising drew supporters across India among both Hindus and Muslims, the results of the uprising were increasing British hostility toward Muslims and a divide between Hindus and Muslims caused by a combination of jihadi elements and the use of British evangelical rhetoric to justify a Christian war. Dalrymple uses his reading of religious justifications for war among British evengelicals and Muslim jihadis as a means of drawing a parallel with the existing state of conflict between Western imperialist interests and modern-day jihadis.

Dalrymple's argument about the role of religious language in inciting divisiveness is well supported by his sources. What is difficult to support is the parallel he draws between the events of 1857 and religious rhetoric today. It is not entirely clear who Dalrymple means by the blanket term jihadi, nor does Dalrymple substantiate his claim that there was a link between movements for Muslim educational reform such as the madrassa at Deoband and the rhetoric of al-Qaeda jihadis. The taking of bàyat (oaths of spiritual discipleship) among Dalrymple's jihadis, according to him, is similar to the taking of bàyat among men who have sworn their allegiance to Osama bin Laden. On the contrary, bàyat were sworn at all times, by Mughal kings to local saints, by members of the king's court and household to the king, and by people of different faiths to those they believed to possess spiritual authority. These oaths served several social and political functions and were one of many ways in which loyalties were forged as a means of holding together the fabric of empire. Drawing a historical continuity between two unrelated sets of circumstances partly based on the taking of such oaths is likely to lead to criticisms of Dalrymple's otherwise well-researched and eloquent work.

More troubling is Dalrymple's assertion that there exists a timeless battle between Islamic orthodoxy and heterodoxy and that the Mughals represented a tolerant face of Islam, one that was eventually to be erased by the call to arms in the name of religion. Given that we live in a world in which we read daily allegations of Islam's links to acts of violence, it is tempting and convenient to look to the past as embodying better times in which tolerant Muslim kings presided over shimmering cities woven of peaceful syncretism. But by doing so, we are giving neither the present nor the past its just due. Arguments about timeless battles, whether between East and West or between tolerant and jihadi groups within Islam, tend to obscure historical specificity and, consequently, offer little in the way of understanding the present through readings of the past.

Aside from these two contentions regarding Dalrymple's arguments about the present, his reading of the many threads of the everyday in nineteenth-century Delhi shows the author at his most deft and imaginative. From his account of the different spaces and time frames in which the city of Delhi functioned, to the individual voices of the people caught up in the events of 1857, and, finally, to the voice of Bahadur Shah Zafar himself, Dalrymple writes a moving account of the end of a way of life and of a king who was unable to alter the course of events that took place in his name.