An outstanding retelling of the early medieval period in the Indian subcontinent, from the incursion of the muslims into Sind in the 8th century to the eve of the Mughal takeover in the 16th. This is essentially a retelling from the writings of local historians (mainly muslim, many from the Turko-Persianate cultural world), which have been collared and published in English translations by he Brittish, in multiple volumes. A retelling from old sources is, however, a valuable contribution, as each generation needs to understand the past and re-interpret it in its own way. In India today the ruling attitude to the islamate history is that it was uniformly oppressive and brutal. Eraly's retelling brings out the point that there were differences in the degree of brutality, and some (a very few, admittedly) of the rulers were relatively generous and tolerant. However, his seemingly facile rationalizing of large scale killing of hindus may jar on the sensitivities of the majority community in India today. A little more study and analysis may be required to decide whether the muslim rulers were brutal just because that was the normal mode in the early medieval universe, and was needed to impose political and administrative control on a rebellious population, and to what extent religious ideology and contempt for the local people as idolatrous and degraded exacerbated the oppressive actions of the muslim rulers. ( )

I am going to give this book four stars for one simple reason - that he managed to make sense of that extremely confusing period of Indian history called The Delhi Sultanate.
It is true that the advent of The Delhi Sultanate changed Indian history forever. This is something most people do not realise, and would do well to do so
There are stories of some great kings here, and we would do well to remember them better. There are stories of some forgettable monarchs as well.
Could he have done better analysis? Possibly.
I would have liked more work on the Sayyid and Lodi Dynasties
There are several times when he has repeated himself, ad incidents. To fill pages? Possibly.
At least, he has brought some sense, in an approachable manner, to that confusing and seminal age in the history of India. ( )