Shah Jahan, ruler of India, murdered three of his brothers in his bloody rise to power. Yet when his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal died, the emperor was said to have wept for a week. He expressed his love and grief by building the world's most beautiful tomb as a monument to her memory.

Shah Jahan was the fifth emperor of the Mughal dynasty. The Mughals combined brute force and fierce ambition with an artistic sensitivity and a love of beauty. Theirs was a world where even forts were architectural gems, where emperors had their life stories told in exquisite miniature paintings, where each new ruler competed with the previous one by building a grander palace, fort, mosque and city.

This is the story of a remarkable dynasty as told through its greatest artistic achievement. From the soaring domes, to the marble columns inlaid with precious gems, to the vast gardens, to the perfect symmetry of its design, the Taj Mahal expressed the ambition, power, grandeur, and beauty of the Mughal world. 

From the dust jacket