The Mulberry Empire Hensher, Philip

Afghanistan, 1839. The British Empire decides it knows what's best for a country it doesn't understand. Philip Hensher's epic novel follows the disastrous First Anglo-Afghan War through the eyes of soldiers, diplomats, and the Afghans caught in the crossfire. An ambitious officer's wife hosts salons in Calcutta while her husband marches toward Kabul. A young lieutenant falls for an Afghan prince. The emperor watches foreigners arrive with their certainties and their guns. Hensher writes with the sweep of a 19th-century novelist but the clarity of hindsight — this is historical fiction that understands how empires delude themselves into catastrophe. Rich, intelligent, and uncomfortably relevant, it's Victorian literature for readers who know how these stories end. For fans of Hilary Mantel's scope and William Dalrymple's eye for imperial folly.