A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time: The Story of the Taj Mahal - Rilegato

Preston, Diana; Preston, Michael

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0385609477 ISBN 13: 9780385609470

Casa editrice: Doubleday, 2007

Riassunto

In 1631, the heartbroken Moghul Emperor, Shah Jahan, ordered the construction of a monument of unsurpassed splendour and majesty in memory of his beloved wife. Theirs was an extraordinary story of passionate love: although almost constantly pregnant – she bore him fourteen children – Mumtaz Mahal followed her husband on every military campaign, in order that they might never be apart. But then Mumtaz died in childbirth. Blinded by grief, Shah Jahan created an exquisite and extravagant memorial for her on the banks of the river Jumna. A gleaming mausoleum of flawless symmetry, the Taj Mahal was built from milk-white marble and rose sandstone, and studded with a fortune in precious jewels. It took twenty years to complete and involved over 20,000 labourers, depleting the Moghul treasuries. But Shah Jahan was to pay a greater price for his obsession. He ended his days imprisoned by his own son in Agra Fort, gazing across the river at the monument to his love. The building of the Taj Mahal had set brother against brother and son against father in a savage conflict that pushed the seventeenth century’s most powerful empire into irreversible decline. The story behind the Taj Mahal has the cadences of Greek tragedy, the carnage of a Jacobean revenge play and the ripe emotion of grand opera. With the storytelling skills that characterize their previous books, in this compelling narrative history Diana and Michael Preston succeed in putting a revealing human face on the famous marble masterpiece.

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Recensione:

"The Prestons' delightful and definitive book tells the monument's full, extraordinary story, not only of the vast undertaking of the building itself, but also the operatic sweep of the dynastic and romantic convulsions behind the project . . . Combines tremendous scholarship with a host of cracking stories well told." (Sunday Telegraph)

"Considerable research leavened by colourful story-telling...every page offers a vivid image or telling detail that captures the deeply weird and violent world of the Moghuls. We're given internecine rivalry; the paranoia, poisonings, tortures and killings; the flaying, blinding, knifing, the general destruction of life but, above all, the luxury." (Spectator)

"The Prestons tell the story engagingly and well, providing a lucid narrative sweep that extends from the arrival of the first Mughal invaders to the manner in which Lord Curzon's obsessive determination to preserve India's past ensured the restoration of the Taj." (Charles Allen Literary Review)

"Although Diana and Michael Preston's book is centred on the Taj, it is largely taken up with an enthralling history of extraordinary kings and their peerlessly cultured and opulent lives . . . truly unforgettable." (Daily Mail)

"A highly readable potted history of the Moghul empire that produced this extraordinary building...thorougly enjoyable." (Financial Times)

Descrizione del libro:

Full of passion and tragedy, the story of the Taj Mahal- one of the greatest love stories of all time

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Doubleday
• Data di pubblicazione: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0385609477
• ISBN 13: 9780385609470
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 368