Even though much literature on Bahadur Shah Zafar and the 1857 revolt exists, Mahdi Husain’s book continues to be of considerable relevance to the historians of Modern India. It is rich in details, and offers a dispassionate interpretation of the 1957 revolt. The book brings alive, to the present-day reader, the trauma of living in 1875, a trauma that people like Syed Ahmad Khan and the Poet Mirza Ghali experienced.
