The Camel Merchant Of Philadelphia

In 1801 the young scion of a petty fiefdom in the Punjab was invested with the title of Maharaja of Punjab. The young man whose name was Ranjit Singh went on to carve out a kingdom for himself that stretched from the borders of Afghanistan in the west to the boundaries of the British Raj in the east. It included the lush hills and valleys of Kashmir the barren mountains of Ladakh and the fertile plains of his native Punjab. The British valued him as an ally who would keep their western frontier safe and while they coveted his kingdom they did not dare to engage in military adventures in Punjab during his lifetime. The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia is an examination of Ranjit Singh and his times that focuses on a wide array of characters that populated his court. All these stories combine to present a nuanced and complex image of Maharaja Ranjit Singh through his interactions with these characters. The work humanises Maharaja Ranjit Singh and presents him as the brilliant man he clearly was without attempting to gloss over his flaws and foibles.

In 1801, Ranjit Singh, the young scion of a petty fiefdom in the Punjab was declared the Maharaja of Punjab. The young man went on to carve out a kingdom that stretched from the borders of Afghanistan in the west to those of the British Raj in the east - the lush hills and valleys of Kashmir, the barren mountains of Ladakh and the fertile plains of his native Punjab. The British dared not engage in military adventures against Ranjit Singh, but valued him as an ally who would keep their western frontier safe. The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia brings alive the king’s dynamic court and his tumultuous but effective reign. In his court was Akali Phoola Singh, the tempestuous leader of the militant Sikhs, who won Ranjit Singh some of his most notable victories, but never fully submitted to his authority. The teenaged Muslim courtesan, Bibi Moran, was the love of the emperor’s life. Josiah Harlan, a Quaker from Philadelphia (the camel merchant of the title), rose to become a trusted administrator, only to defect to the Afghans. Jean Baptiste Ventura and Jean Francois Allard formed the king’s famed French legions and rose to the highest ranks of the empire’s armies. Sarbpreet Singh’s compelling new history of Ranjit Singh’s life and times humanises a great emperor without glossing over his flaws and foibles. He examines the maharaja’s complex relationship with his mother-in-law, Mata Sada Kaur, arguably the chief architect of his ascension to the throne, just as candidly as he does the rise of the Dogra brothers, who began as humble soldiers and went on to scale unimaginable heights of power and glory in his court. This is an unusually nuanced and complex image of Maharaja Ranjit Singh - a must-read for everyone interested in Indian history.

A young Indian in the USA embraces a cause rooted in his motherland, but one that he doesn't fully understand. A student's world is turned upside down when his friend and her family are caught in the cross hairs of volatility and violence. A train burns as it enters Delhi, and the sole Sikh survivor shares with the nation the harrowing tale of his survival . . . These and many other stories form this heart-rending collection that evokes the horrors and uncertainties of 1984, through the tales of ordinary people caught in something bigger than themselves. Set during a time of monumental upheaval, Night of the Restless Spirits blurs the lines between the personal and political, and takes the reader on a journey fraught with love and tinged with tragedy, frayed relationships, the breaking down of humanity and resilience in the face of absolute despair. These stories tell us that people are capable of the best and the worst, but that ultimately there is always hope.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839) Popularly Known As The Lion Of The Panjab Is, Perhaps The Most Outstanding Figure In Panjab History. Because Of His Extraordinary Qualities As A Fighter, Conqueror And An Empire Builder Ranjit Singh Is Often Compared With The Napoleon Bonaparte, Bismarck And Akbar. Rising From The Position Of The Chief Of One Of The Twelve Sikh Confederacies In The Eighteenth Century Panjab, Ranjit Singh Was The First Panjabi Ruler Who Established A Vast Empire In North India, Which Extended From The Khybar Pass In The North West, Sutlej In The East, Deserts Of Sind In The South And China And Tibet In The North. This Book Tries To Capture The Life And Times Of The Maharaja Based On Some Of The Hitherto Inaccessible And Unpublished Material Collected From Various Repositories In India, Pakistan And The United Kingdom.

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"Time travel, UFOs, mysterious planets, stigmata, rock-throwing poltergeists, huge footprints, bizarre rains of fish and frogs-nearly a century after Charles Fort's Book of the Damned was originally published, the strange phenomenon presented in this book remains largely unexplained by modern science. Through painstaking research and a witty, sarcastic style, Fort captures the imagination while exposing the flaws of popular scientific explanations. Virtually all of his material was compiled and documented from reports published in reputable journals, newspapers and periodicals because he was an avid collector. Charles Fort was somewhat of a recluse who spent most of his spare time researching these strange events and collected these reports from publications sent to him from around the globe. This was the first of a series of books he created on unusual and unexplained events and to this day it remains the most popular. If you agree that truth is often stranger than fiction, then this book is for you"--Taken from Good Reads website.