Synopsis Studies in the field of social and cultural history of medieval India are rather few and far between. This book by Azhar Ansari is a valuable addition to the category of such studies that deal with the social and cultural life of the royalty and nobility, a section that significantly determined the direction of cultural development in all urban centres and set a number of cultural trends all over the subcontinent. It describes the daily life of the king and his seraglio in considerable detail. This book is a significant contribution in the study of the daily life in the female part of royalty about which much has yet not been studied. The chapter on hunting sums up considerable details of an aspect that has yet hardly been discussed in such details. The book discusses in detail the Mughals penchant for aesthetics and exhaustively narrates the various horticultural activities that the Mughals indulged in all over the subcontinent. Discussion about the various types of their dresses is another special feature of the book. So also is the study of their manners and customs practised in the court as well as in the residences.