William Dalrymple’s The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World is a monumental work of scholarship that seeks to recentre India’s role in global history, dismantling long-held Eurocentric narratives. While ambitious in scope and rich in detail, the book’s dense academic approach may prove challenging for casual readers, particularly those drawn to the more urgent contemporary parallels of Dalrymple’s earlier work, The Anarchy.
Dalrymple charts India’s influence across Eurasia from 250 BCE to 1200 CE, arguing that a “Golden Road” of trade and cultural exchange—not the mythologised Silk Road—formed the backbone of ancient ‘globalisation’. The book meticulously traces the diffusion of Indian ideas, including mathematics (the decimal system, zero, algebra, and trigonometry), the spread of Buddhism to Southeast Asia and China, maritime commerce networks stretching from Rome to Java, and shared motifs in art and architecture across Angkor Wat, Afghanistan, and beyond.
Dalrymple’s research is intense, drawing on archaeological findings, multilingual sources, and his travels to reconstruct bustling ports and monastic hubs. However, this wealth of detail often overwhelms; chapters brim with names of dynasties and traders and texts that blur together without clear narrative momentum. At times, it feels like a guidebook or reference book (and I would love to be travelling in India with this monster).
Where The Anarchy (2019) used the East India Company’s rise to interrogate modern corporate power, drawing implicit parallels to the US, The Golden Road feels less anchored to contemporary debates. Dalrymple’s earlier work thrived on human drama, structural analysis, and moral urgency. By contrast, The Golden Road operates on a civilisational scale, celebrating pluralism and cross-cultural synthesis but offering fewer direct lessons for today apart from the Indian economic rise, which is perhaps aspirational more than reality. Dalrymple’s critique of the “Silk Road” myth is compelling, yet his focus on ancient networks lacks the visceral immediacy of The Anarchy’s account of corporate looters draining Bengal during famines.
The book shines in vignettes that blend travelogue with history: Buddhist monks braving Himalayan passes to spread scriptures, Arab merchants decoding monsoon patterns for spice voyages, and the Chola dynasty’s naval dominance over Southeast Asia. However, Dalrymple’s prose occasionally buckles under the weight of his ambition. Descriptions of mathematical concepts or astronomical treatises grow arid compared to The Anarchy’s pulse-quickening battles and boardroom scheming. While specialists will appreciate his dismantling of China-centric “Silk Road” narratives, general readers may crave tighter pacing.
The Golden Road is a vital corrective to historical amnesia, restoring India’s position as Eurasia’s intellectual and economic hub. Yet its academic density and lack of contemporary hooks make it a tougher sell than The Anarchy. For readers fascinated by premodern globalisation, transcultural exchange, and South Asian history, this book is indispensable. Those seeking Dalrymple’s trademark blend of narrative flair and present-day resonance may find themselves longing for the corporate villains and cautionary tales of his earlier work.
As a standalone achievement, The Golden Road deserves acclaim. But measured against The Anarchy’s razor-sharp relevance, particularly amid modern debates, it feels more like a majestic cathedral than a call to arms ( against rising US corporate power).
Leave a Reply