Charles Allen has been a leading authority on south Asian history for many years and is the author of Soldier Sahibs: The Men Who Made the North West Frontiers, Plain Tales from the Raj, Tales from the Dark Continent, Tales from the South China Sea, A Mountain in Tibet and The Search for Shangri-La.
Born in India, where six generations of his family served under the British Raj. His own great-grandfather was witness to the assasination of Lord Mayo on the Afghan-Pakistan frontier in 1872. In 1998, Charles himself accidentally strayed dangerously close to Osama bin Laden's camp in Afghanistan.