Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World
In what is widely seen as a pioneering work, Ruby Lal explores Mughal domestic life and feminine actions vital to the Mughal Empire. Aligning with feminist interventions in Ottoman and Safavid histories, she remaps the traditional Orientalist pictures of the Mughal haram and reveals a complex society in which noble men and women negotiated their daily public-political affairs while on the road, and in inner chambers and outer courts.
From reviews
“Historians have . . . [been] in denial of the fact that gender played an important role in history as it does in life. Domesticity and Power breaches this denial by not just ‘visibilising’ royal women of Mughal India but showing how complex their relations were with men as well as between themselves” SALEEM KIDWAI
“After Lal’s persuasive exposé of the inextricable links between the male and female, the political and domestic . . . it should be impossible to write about Mughal politics without considering domestic factors and issues of gender”
KATHERINE BUTLER SCHOFIELD
“. . . a path-breaking book that completely overturns long held beliefs about the nature of the harem in the early Mughal world”
IRA MUKHOTYAuthor
Ruby Lal is an acclaimed historian of India and Professor of South Asian History at Emory University. Her recent biography, Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan (2018) was a Finalist in History for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and won the Georgia Author of the Year Award in Biography.
Details
Paperback
266 pages
In the Hedgehog and Fox series, copublished with Ashoka University
For sale in South Asia only
You can buy this book from our distributors Orient Blackswan or from good bookstores, or from online portals.