Thought a thread dedicated to folks sharing useful and inspirational books might be a good idea.

As a military history devotee, I possess a vast library of texts, including a couple hundred books by osprey. One of these, Men-at-Arms #263: Mughul India 1504-1761 is a beautiful text illustrated by the late, great Angus McBride.

Aside from looking at the organization, equipment, and tactics of the armies of the period, it (like every other Osprey MAA book) has eight painted colour plates, these depicting Mughul warriors, princes, armour, and weapons in lavish detail. Little factoids such as the Marathas using trained monitor lizards as living grappling hooks, these climbing the walls of Mughul fortresses with ropes tied around their bodies, lodging themselves into crevices, are priceless.

[Blocked Image: http://www.ospreypublishing.com/images/books/covers/9781855323445.JPG]

cheers!
Colin

Okay, a few of other fun tidbits:

It was not unusual for Mughul nobles, including the likes of Emperor Shah-Jahan, to decorate their mounts, not only with beautiful saddles and saddle blankets, but by braiding their manes and tails elaborately, intertwining them with beads of coloured glass. Henna was also used to decorate a mount, such as by selectively dying the lower half of its tail, or the bottom half of its legs.

Many gamers get solidly stuck on ideas such as women being non-combatants (despite many historical cases of women being able warriors, such as the Mino aka the Dahomey Amazons). Another historical example is that during the reign of Emperor Akbar, he employed a corps of female warriors called the Urdubegis, these women warriors being employed as palace guards, especially of his harem (which travelled with him even when he went to war!).

Akbar also cannily employed a corps of royal guards called Khidmatiyyahs, their ranks being exclusively filled with criminals such as thieves and highwaymen. "Set a thief to catch a thief." indeed.

cheers!
Colin