Dalrymple's account of a year living in Delhi — layering the city's successive civilizations (sultanates, Mughals, British, modern India) through encounters with its surviving inhabitants.
Delhi as palimpsest: seven successive cities built on top of each other, their traces visible in ruins, people, and customs. Dalrymple's method: finding the living remnants of historical civilizations — the last Mughal calligrapher, the eunuchs who served Mughal courts, British families maintaining colonial-era rituals. His most structurally perfect book: history, travel, and encounter perfectly balanced.
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