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

Guardian

In his <b>masterful new work</b>, The Golden Road (Bloomsbury, April 29), historian William Dalrymple argues that India has both the potential and the historical track record to catch up with its former peer to the northeast . . . <b>The Golden Road fills an important gap in our understanding</b> of the intra-Asian relations that predated the arrival of European colonisers.

- Kishore Mahbubani, Bloomberg

<b>A multifarious and engaging</b> narrative, which, like Indian trade, takes us in many directions, <b>peppered with lively stories and charismatic individuals</b>

Independent

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

Spectator

As always, Dalrymple <b>writes with great knowledge and verve</b>, and with telling details

- Richard Harries, Church Times

Dalrymple is erudite and wonderfully entertaining … This is a wonderful book. <b>Read it through in delight,</b> acquiring knowledge, perhaps even wisdom. <b>Then you will surely return to read much of it again</b>

- Allan Massie, Scotsman

<b>William Dalrymple’s luminous new book</b> … In brilliantly excavating the Golden Road in the current age of the Silk Road, Dalrymple’s book is both contemporary and altogether foreign. It does not so much explain the present as indicate the long and even insurmountable distance between then and now

New Statesman

<b>A pioneering new book </b>based on methodical historical research to showcase the huge loss for the world in misunderstanding and misrepresenting India

iGlobalNews

As with Dalrymple’s earlier books, <b><i>The Golden Road</i> is full of adventurous tales</b> ... Woven into the text are some of his own travels, lushly described ... Dalrymple doesn’t talk down to his reader, with words like fascicles, quincunx, thalassocracy, voussoirs and grimoire abounding. And the 288 pages of text are backed by a prodigious ninety-two pages of notes and a fifty-six-page bibliography

Inside Story

Dalrymple’s own odyssey is equally <b>laden to the gunwales with pages of astounding illustrations and arresting anecdotes</b>, but <b>its destination is always clear and its argument compelling</b>

London Review of Books

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

Literary Review

<b>Dalrymple is at his artful best </b>in his account of how the knowledge of several mathematical concepts and astronomical discoveries passed from ancient India to eighth-century Baghdad through an eccentric family of Muslim royal viziers who had once been rectors in a Buddhist monastery in Afghanistan

Observer

<b>A wonderful storyteller</b>, he’ll make you fall in love with India all over again

Indian Link

<b>A bold, sweeping narrative </b>...<b> Highly readable</b> ... Dalyrmple's book is also timely

Australian

Anybody who’s interested not only in the history of India, but really in the history of the entire world, should be reading this

Monocle

<b>An epic narrative</b> exploring India’s profound influence on the world, particularly through its contributions to mathematics, religion, and trade. This work<b> showcases the “astonishing gifts” India has given humanity</b>, weaving together historical threads that have often been overlooked or misunderstood

Eastern Eye

<b>A book as glorious as its name implies </b>... The jigsaw pieces that he puts into place, as he takes us down the Golden Road, are backed up with an astonishing 200 pages of source notes and bibliography to clarify and verify his position. Surely a most joyous rabbit hole to go down once the book is read

Irish Times

<b>Riveting </b>... Dalrymple brings to his defence of this term [the Indosphere/Golden Road] the boyish energy and eagerness that have marked his writing since his youthful travel book, <i>In Xanadu</i> (1989) ... The sagas of the East India Company and the First Afghan War have seldom been more thrillingly depicted

Telegraph

It has long been clear that Dalrymple is primarily a historian and an<b> erudite and wonderfully entertaining</b> one at that ... <b>It is a wonderful book</b> and, though Dalrymple is too knowledgeable to deny the achievements of the BritishRaj, the book reminds us how brief our Indian empire was

Scotsman

<b>Huge in scope</b> ... Dalrymple, a really well known and loved as a historian, has written a stack of books about India and this is a culmination of all of them ... As with all of Dalrymple's books it's so accessible, so well written, really clear, so even though it's packed with information it's just <b>so readable and so fascinating</b>

Breakfast with Michael Clarke

In <b>exquisite prose</b>, Dalrymple outlines the influence of the subcontinent upon global technology, astronomy, art, religion, music, mathematics, literature and mythology

BBC History Magazine

Compelling history from the bestselling historian persuasively argues that India thoroughly deserves a place among the great civilisations for its exporting of culture and ideas over centuries through ancient Eurasia

New Zealand Listener