When you add it all up, I have been working on this book off and on for nearly fifteen years. As one can imagine, in that time I have accumulated more debts, large and small, than even I can really comprehend, much less tally here with any degree of justice to those who have helped make this work possible. I have benefited immensely from the guidance of some of the greatest scholars in the world the support of numerous institutions, foundations, colleagues, friends, and family members; and even the help of any number of shopkeepers and innkeepers in dusty towns of the North Indian plains where I did some of my early archival research, baristas and chai-wallas in places like Chicago, New York, London, Berlin, Cairo, Beirut, and just about everywhere else I’ve traveled; support staff in all the various universities where I have studied, taught, done research, and given talks over the years; and of course the many, many librarians and archivists who make our research possible, yet rarely get the credit they deserve. I remember them all with gratitude, even if, I’m embarrassed to admit, I do not remember all of their names, or have space to thank them all individually even if I could.

Mughal-Library