The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World

By William Dalrymple

A revolutionary new history of the diffusion of Indian ideas, from the award-winning, bestselling author and co-host of the chart-topping Empire podcast.

India is the forgotten heart of the ancient world.

For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilisation, creating around it a vast empire of ideas. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific.

William Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India’s oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia. For the first time, he gives a name to this spread of Indian ideas that transformed the world. From the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero), India transformed the culture and technology of its ancient world – and our world today as we know it.

Reviews of The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World

'Richly woven, highly readable … Written with passion and verve' Spectator

'Dazzling … Not just a historical study but also a love letter' Guardian

'An outstanding new account … The most compelling retelling we have had for generations' Financial Times