THE GOLDEN ROAD : HOW ANCIENT INDIA TRANSFORMED THE WORLD

An outstanding new account of ancient India's cultural conquest of the globe . The Golden Road is an absorbingly literary history, a tale of tales ... Xi Jinping's China is currently much better at promoting itself as the heart of Asia. But it may ultimately prove no match for India's primordial gift for myth and narrative, and this is what Dalrymple has so successfully channelled into The Golden Road. The plot, especially for South Asians, may be an old one, but it's the most compelling retelling we have had for generations ― Financial Times

Dazzling ... The Golden Road, teeming with his own evocative descriptions of far-flung cave and forest temples, sculptures and wall paintings, is not just a historical study but also a love letter - to a lost syncretic world of interacting and evolving religious creeds and intellectual movements, when Indian ideas transformed the world ― Guardian

Dalrymple's own odyssey is equally laden to the gunwales with pages of astounding illustrations and arresting anecdotes, but its destination is always clear and its argument compelling ― London Review of Books

A more masterful and accessible survey of a 'world-changing' traffic in commodities, creeds, scientific insights and artistic conventions than The Golden Road would be hard to find. The only surprise is that it has taken Dalrymple so long to address the subject. No one is better qualified to do so ... The breadth of Dalrymple's research is a revelation and a delight ...What Tagore called 'the Greater India outside India' knew no boundaries. Neither does this enthralling study ― Literary Review

A richly woven, highly readable account of the highlights of India's outsized influence on the world. It is also a celebration of cosmopolitanism and cultural exchange, written with passion and verve and hinting at an optimism for India's future of which Tagore himself would no doubt heartily have approved ― Spectator

A bold, sweeping narrative ... Highly readable ... Dalyrmple's book is also timely ― The Australian

Dalrymple is erudite and wonderfully entertaining . This is a wonderful book. Read it through in delight, acquiring knowledge, perhaps even wisdom. Then you will surely return to read much of it again -- Allan Massie ― Scotsman