Royals and Rebels

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In late-eighteenth-century India, the glory of the once formidable Mughal emperors was fading. Building on the ruins of their kingdom, a whole host of ambitious newcomers seized power, changing the political map of the subcontinent forever. Among them were the Sikhs of the Punjab, most importantly the dynasty of the legendary Maharajah Ranjit Singh his Sikh Empire stretched throughout north-western India into Afghanistan and Tibet. 'Royals and Rebels' is a fascinating, fresh look into the world of this long-lost kingdom. Priya Atwal looks beyond the dynasty's founding father and, for the first time, restores the perspectives and contributions of the dynasty's women and children to the history of this empire's spectacular rise and fall. She brings to life a self-made royal family seeking to secure and legitimise their new power, inventively fusing Sikh, Mughal and European ideas, and reveals an entirely new story about the gendered family politics that led to their eventual decline, with the Punjab controversially annexed by that other great emerging player in India: the British East India Company. This is a highly original tale of family, royalty and the fluidity of power, set in a dramatic global era when new stars rose and upstart empires clashed.