BROADCASTS.com

b'

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Mughal Empire which, at its height, stretched from Bengal\\xa0in the East to\\xa0Gujarat in the West, and from Lahore in the North to Madras in the South.\\xa0 It covered the whole of present day northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, and became famous for the Taj Mahal, the Koh-i-Noor and the Peacock Throne.\\xa0 In 1631 a Dutch naturalist Johannes de Laet published his account of the vast Empire, \\u201cthe nobles live in indescribable luxury and extravagance, caring only to indulge themselves whilst they can, in every kind of pleasure.\\xa0 Their greatest magnificence is in their women\\u2019s quarters, for they marry three or four wives or sometimes more\\u201d.But were they really the opulent despots of European imagination?\\xa0 If so, how did they maintain such a vast territory?\\xa0 And to what extent was the success of the British Raj a legacy of their rule? With Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Professor of Indian History and Culture at the University of Oxford; Susan Stronge, Curator in the Asian Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Chandrika Kaul, Lecturer in Imperial History at the University of St Andrews.