Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River (Paperback)
“Alice Albinia is the most extraordinary traveler of her generation. . . . A journey of astonishing confidence and courage.”—Rory Stewart
One of the largest rivers in the world, the Indus rises in the Tibetan mountains and flows west across northern India and south through Pakistan. It has been worshipped as a god, used as a tool of imperial expansion, and today is the cement of Pakistan’s fractious union. Alice Albinia follows the river upstream, through two thousand miles of geography and back to a time five thousand years ago when a string of sophisticated cities grew on its banks. “This turbulent history, entwined with a superlative travel narrative” (The Guardian) leads us from the ruins of elaborate metropolises, to the bitter divisions of today. Like Rory Stewart’s The Places In Between, Empires of the Indus is an engrossing personal journey and a deeply moving portrait of a river and its people.
Alice Albinia is the award-winning author of Empires of the Indus, Leela’s Book, and Cwen. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and National Geographic, among other publications. She lives in London.
A magnificent book, a triumphant melding of travel and history into a compelling story of adventure and discovery.
— Financial Times
— Financial Times