CONSOLIDATING EMPIRE (HB)

What Happened In Mughal India In The Quarter Century After AkbarS Death? Nothing That Really Mattered According To Received Wisdom. Through A Complete ReExamination Of The Reign Of The Fourth Mughal Emperor Jahangir, This Book Upends That Traditional View. Rather Than Provide A Linear History Of This Relatively Neglected Monarch, Lefvre Analyses A Wide Range Of Imperial And NonImperial Texts, As Well As Vestiges Of Material Culture, To Reveal Major Transformations Involving Imperial Authority, EthnoReligious Diversity, And State Centralism. The Book Begins By Questioning The Historiography That Categorises The Monarch As A Political Lightweight. By Contrast, Lefvre Shows Us An Intellectually Complex, Astute, And MultiFaceted Jahangir Who Managed A Tightrope Act Between SelfIndulgence And The Serious Business Of Kingship. More Important Than Looking At The King, She Says, Is Examining The Nature Of The Empire Under His Reign. To That End, She Moves The Focus Onto The Mughal Military, Administrative, And Religious Elites, And Highlights How They Readjusted To The Changing Imperial Ethos. The Book Closes With An Exploration Of Relations Between The Mughal Empire And Two Other Major Polities Of Early Modern Muslim Asia Safavid Iran And The Chingizid Khanate Of Central Asia. Scholars And General Readers Will Value This Thorough And MuchNeeded Revision In Our Understanding Of Jahangir And Mughal India.