Lives of the Indian princes

by Charles Allen

Lives of the Indian Princes

Genres: India, History, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir

352 pages, Hardcover

First published June 28, 1998

About the author

Charles Allen is a British writer and historian. He was born in India, where several generations of his family served under the British Raj. His work focuses on India and South Asia in general. Allen's most notable work is Kipling Sahib, a biography of Rudyard Kipling. His most recent work, Ashoka: the Search for India's Lost Emperor, was published in February 2012.

Selected works:

Plain Tales from the Raj: Images of British India in the Twentieth Century (1975)
Raj: A Scrapbook of British India 1877–1947 (1977)
Tales from the Dark Continent: Images of British Colonial Africa in the Twentieth Century (1979)
A Mountain in Tibet: The Search for Mount Kailas and the Sources of the Great Rivers of India (1982)
Tales from the South China Seas: Images of the British in South-East Asia in the Twentieth Century (1983)
Lives of the Indian Princes, with co-author Sharada Dwivedi (1984)
Kipling's Kingdom: His Best Indian Stories (1987)
A Glimpse of the Burning Plain: Leaves from the Journals of Charlotte Canning (1986)
A Soldier of the Company: Life of an Indian Ensign 1833–43 (1988)
Architecture of the British Empire, Ed. R. Fermor-Hesketh (1989)
The Savage Wars of Peace: Soldiers' Voices 1945–1989 (1990)
Thunder and Lightning: The RAF in the Gulf War (1991)
The Search for Shangri-La: A Journey into Tibetan History (1999)
India Through the Lens: Photography 1840–1911, Ed. Vidya Dehejia (2000)
Soldier Sahibs: The Men who Made the North-west Frontier (2000)
The Buddha and the Sahibs: The Men who Discovered India's Lost Religion (2002)
Duel in the Snows: The True Story of the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa (2004)
Maharajas: Resonance from the Past (2005)
God's Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad (2006)
Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling (2007)
The Buddha and Dr Führer: An Archaeological Scandal (2008)
The Taj at Apollo Bunder: The History of the Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, with co-author Sharada Dwivedi (2011)
Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor (2012)

Reviews

[Tataka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately what I thought could be an amazing insight into the lives of royalty in India .. turned out to be quite disappointing in the way was written .. there was just too much information and all over the place .. one phrase was about one prince the next about another prince and so on and so on .. in my opinion the writer tried to explain too much about too many events and people that by end of each chapter I was just confused by so much info .. I gave it two stars because I did like the last two chapters ..

[Nadja · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating insider's look into a world of yesterdays. Puts the history of India into perspective as seen through the eyes of a myriad of independent kingdoms that has only been ever been one country since said kingdoms ceased to be after 1947. It's rich in research and peppered with first-person anecdotes for a sometimes unreal glimpse into the life of the royalty of India.

[Ananya Mishra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pictures!

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scrapes a five. The social history which is most of the book is fascinating. The bits that try to deal with the history of the Princes and India are just confusing as the history is so huge.

[Edna Kennedy]

what it was like to be royalty in India prior to and following independence. lavishly illustrated with pictures of the people and the palaces. it also has many anecdotes from the royals giving vivid descriptions of their childhoods.