The Empire of The Great Mughals

Schimmel, Annemarie. The Empire Of The Great Mughals : History, Art And Culture. London: Reaktion, 2004. Print.

The search terms I used to find this book were “mughal empire”, “religion”, and “culture”. I was interested in learning more about the Mughal empire because we had learned in class that they were one of the most wealthy empires in the world. When searching for the book the first thing that caught my eye was the title. I was intrigued by the aspect of art and culture in the history. When flipping throughout the book, the numerous photos of art and portraits from the time of the Mughals drew my attention. When looking at the table of contents and reading blurbs from the book, it appears that the book is about the cultural details of the Mughal empire. The chapters cover things from each emperor’s rule, religion, the arts, language, to the role of women. As we discussed in class, the book talked about the religious tolerance of the Mughals. The Mughals were a majority Islamic, but other tolerated religions included Jains, Parsis, Jews, Christians, and more. This book tells the reader a lot about life in the empire, and the practices and lifestyle of their people. Some interesting titles of other books around The Empire of The Great Mughals included, The Scandal of Empires, and The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.