The Tuzuk-I-Jahangiri: Or, Memoirs of Jahangir (volume 2 of 2)

One of history's most intimate portraits of power, written by the hand that held it. The Tuzuk-I-Jahangiri is the autobiographical memoir of Emperor Jahangir, fourth ruler of the Mughal Empire, composed in the early years of the seventeenth century. Here, the veil of official history falls away. We hear Jahangir not as a statue of empire, but as a man: noting the arrival of tributes, recording his failing eyesight, describing a hunt at dawn, promoting a favored general, reflecting on wine and weather and the particular quality of light falling across his court. This second volume chronicles key years of his reign, revealing the texture of ruling an empire from the inside. The tone is sometimes tender, sometimes imperious, always unmistakably human. For historians, it is a document of immense value. For the curious reader, it is something rarer: a chance to listen in on a ruler thinking aloud, four centuries later.