Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond.
The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond. William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, Koh-i-Noor: Kindle Edition. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017. $10.99
To this day, millions of visitors throng the Tower of London to see the Koh-i-Noor, the dazzling diamond set in the Maltese cross of the velvet crown of the Queen Mother. The Koh-i- Noor, the diamond with a bloody history, has long captured the imagination of many from around the world who are fascinated with its back story; endless questions swirl around its journey from India to Britain.
In 1850 the East India Company presented the Koh-i-Noor to Queen Victoria. Since 1947 India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Taliban have claimed ownership of the diamond, but the British government has argued that they legally obtained it. In 1849 Theo Metcalfe of the East India Company wrote a history of the Koh-i-Noor filled with anecdotes and myths, which later became its accepted history. In Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond, William Dalrymple and Anita Anand write an authoritative history, debunking this aforementioned accepted history.
Dalrymple, a historian educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, has written several books on Indian history and travel, including The Age of Kali, City of Djinns, The Last Mughal, and White Mughals. Anita Anand is a British radio and television journalist educated at King’s college in London; her parents migrated from Lahore to London after the partition of India. Her book, Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary is a biography of Sophia Duleep Singh, the daughter of Duleep Singh, from whom the East India Company appropriated the Koh-i-Noor.
This story is from the October 2017 edition of India Currents.
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This story is from the October 2017 edition of India Currents.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond.
