William Dalrymple

For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilisation, creating around it a vast empire of ideas that were spread across the world along a Golden Road stretching from the Red Sea to the Pacific. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the globe.

Historian William Dalrymple (The Golden Road) draws on a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India’s oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia, sharing stories of the Indian ideas that transformed both the ancient world and our modern societies, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero).

Dalrymple’s books include White Mughals, The Last Mughal and Return of a King. He has written and presented three television series and co-hosts, with Anita Anand, the podcast Empire.