India's last Maharajahs were people caught between two worlds; the ancient feudal one at home, and a modern Europe riven by conflicting imperialistic aims and political ideologies. This helped create an anticolonial Indian leadership addicted to Western-style parliamentary democracy. And socialism. The Indian Princely States, ruled by autocrats, continued to exist with astonishingly little change into the middle of the twentieth century, specially in Rajputana (modern Rajasthan), where even today visitors can drift back into the past, surrounded by fairytale forts and palaces once peopled by romantic Rajputs with Quixotic ideas of honour, pride and cou, linked by centuries of kinship and conflict. Into this they drag British Viceroys, Residents, Military Secretaries, Memsahebs and visiting Royalty. The utterly different Rajput and English frames of reference, attitudes, upbringing, and conduct in the council chamber, sports field, battlefield, and the world at large result inevitablyin muddles and misunderstandings. These are the cornerstones of this book.