Book review: Royals and rebels: the rise and fall of the Sikh empire by Priya Atwal

In Royals and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire, Priya Atwal offers a new study that convincingly pushes against the historiography that has positioned the Sikh Empire as a one-man enterprise, delving deep into archival sources to reveal the rich, energetic and flawed lives of the Punjabi royal elite as they tried to carve out their dynastic place in India during the first half of the nineteenth century. The book is a tour-de-force, finds Diya Gupta, with the clarity and authority of Atwal’s writing and her careful reading of historical material succeeding in revealing the contingencies of the past in all its complexity. Royals and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire. Priya Atwal. Hurst. 2020.