Publisher's Synopsis
On 29 March 1849, the ten-year-old maharaja of Punjab was compelled to hand over great riches to the British, including perhaps the single most valuable object on the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond, the Mountain of Light. The history of the Koh-i-Noor that was then commissioned by the British may have been one woven together from gossip of Delhi bazaars, but it was to be become the accepted version. Only now is it finally challenged, freeing the diamond from the fog of mythology that has clung to it for so long. The resulting history is one of greed, murder, torture, colonialism and appropriation told through an impressive slice of south and central Asian history. It ends with the jewel in its current controversial setting: in the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
