Book excerpt: Excerpt from Rulers of India: Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan and the Struggle With the Musalman Powers of the South The following sketch of the Musalman usurpation in Mysore is an attempt to present in a popular form the career of one of the most remarkable personages who have played their parts on the stage of Indian history, together with that of his equally remarkable son - the first distinguished by the energy, enterprise, and daring which enabled him to seize a throne, and the second by his bigotry, his hostility to the English, and the fatuous obstinacy which cost him his crown and his life. The materials for such a memoir, although often contradictory, according to the source whence they are derived, are sufficiently copious for the greater part of the narrative. The conflicting views of Eng lish, French, and native authorities regarding Haidar Ali and his son make it difficult to form an absolutely correct estimate of their career, while the limited space at his disposal precludes the writer from doing full justice to the course of events referred to in the narrative. It was a period, however, of vital import ance to the future supremacy of the British in India. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.