In a lively and uniquely comprehensive narrative of Kashmir’s past and current predicament, the book reinstates the cultural and political centrality of one of Asia’s most cherished but maligned states.

What emerges in this landmark history is not the familiar tale of a paradise lost to modern politics, but the portrait of a civilisation that has repeatedly reinvented itself – and whose deep past holds the key to understanding its fraught present.

Drawing on the ancient Sanskrit chronicle known as the Rajatarangini – the 'River of Kings' – alongside the accounts of Mughal emperors, Central Asian adventurers, British travellers and modern scholars, Keay traces Kashmir's story from its mythic origins as a sacred lake to its violent transformation into one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints.

What is it about this place that makes it so sought after, and fought over? Is it just an accident of geography that lends it such strategic importance? Or is it more to do with the observation of Emperor Jehangir: ‘If there is a paradise on Earth, this is it, this is it, this is it’?

Sovereignty, as the twelfth-century poet-historian Kalhana observed, rests only for a while, like a bird on the tree. In Kashmir, Kashmir, John Keay shows how that bird has never stopped moving – and reveals why the world has never stopped watching.