Anirudh Kanisetti
Anirudh Kanisetti is an award-winning public historian, columnist and speaker specialising in ancient and early medieval India. He is the author of Lords of Earth and Sea: A History of the Chola Empire (Juggernaut, 2025); and Lords of the Deccan: Southern India from the Chalukyas to the Cholas (Juggernaut, 2022). He writes the popular Thinking Medieval column for ThePrint and hosts three podcasts: Echoes of India: A History Podcast, YUDDHA: The Indian Military History Podcast, and The Altar of Time: A History of India's Christian Art. He is currently Honorary Fellow at the Deccan Heritage Foundation.
Anirudh is represented by David Godwin Associates for literary engagements. For speaking engagements, lectures, and other collaborations, he can be reached below.
books
Lords of Earth and Sea
Lords of The Deccan
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‘Lords of the Deccan is the completely thrilling and game-changing debut
of a major new talent. Anirudh Kanisetti is a superb writer and a talented storyteller as well as an impressively judicious and subtle historian. He breathes life into the rajas, scholars and soldiers of two nearly forgotten medieval dynasties and resurrects for us a whole extraordinary world with flair, nuance, clarity and sophistication.’
– William Dalrymple, author of The Anarchy
‘Kanisetti’s union of historicity and narrative non-fiction will be a tough act to follow.’
– Biblio: A Review of Books
‘[Kanisetti] writes as if he is speaking directly to you, telling you a story, and
taking you places . . . a magnificent book.’
– Business Standard
‘Rarely has the history of peninsular India, of this period, been told as
anything more than a dry and ceaseless monotony of battles between obscure
and unimaginable rulers. Anirudh Kanisetti’s Lords of the Deccan has lifted
the history of south India out of the dusty archives of Indian archaeology and
epigraphy. Meticulously researched and narrated with a style that is at once
lively and judicious, Lords of the Deccan synthesizes a wide array of innovations in recent scholarship with the older tradition of political history. Kanisetti harnesses his impressive skills as a storyteller to breathe new life into his subject, deftly interweaving the careers of individual kings, the structures and networks of noble families, and the great transformations in religious, cultural and literary life into a single coherent and riveting account of south India in this crucial period, which saw the region enter historical center-stage and take on many contours still palpable today.’
– Daud Ali, Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania
and author of Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India
features
"The book does much to highlight the historical significance of a region that does not figure prominently in the popular imagination of India’s medieval past."
"Kanisetti's blistering book might be the pioneering force in unraveling many more legends of the Deccan."
"Anirudh Kanisetti’s Lords of the Deccan is a sprawling and riveting saga of a region that has often been overlooked in popular Indian history."
"Kanisetti, who has a degree in engineering, has carved a niche as a public historian. He made his mark with Lords of the Deccan.."
‘['Kanisetti] writes as if he is speaking directly to you, telling you a story, and
taking you places . . . a magnificent book.’'
"In his debut book, Anirudh Kanisetti dusts off the haze from these overlooked chapters in history, and breathes life into the many figures that dominated it"
speaking & writing
