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Book Reviews : The Mughal Empire by John F. Richards (Vol. I/5 of the New Cambridge History of India). Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xvi; 320

are currently causing controversy among historians of South Asia. He has sought to satisfy the competing demands of narrative, analysis, and finally synthesis, through the device of introducing the main ’themes’ in the chapter on Akbar’s ’autocratic centralism’, after which they are picked up again and interlinked with the narrative account of subsequent reigns. In the context of recent interpretations of the Mughal period, Richards takes a firm stand first and foremost on the degree of successful ’autocratic centralism’ which he affirms distinguishes Akbar’s empire from earlier Sultanate politics. The year 1720, after which ’the Mughal empire became a substantially different entity’ in an era of irremediable decline, is hence the ending point for the volume. Richards’ argument here reflects very closely his own very important contributions to the study of Mughal relations with the Deccan states in the seventeenth century, but also some recent analyses of the structure of the Mughal state by, for example, Douglas Streusand and Stephen Blake. While note had already been taken by others of technological gaps shown by disinterest in naval and printing initiatives, Richards emphasises instead the positive initiatives which created, on a military basis, a successful ’paper bureaucracy’ capable not only of controlling, but of eliciting both revenue and collaboration from, a constantly expanding and unwieldy empire. A second theme, to the formulation of which Richards’ own earlier studies had already contributed the essence, is the emphasis on dynastic ideology as the deliberately-contrived