The author offers innovative accounts of five medieval monuments in Delhi - the Red Fort, Rasul Numa Dargah, Jama Masjid, Purana Qila, and the Qutb complex - tracing their modern lives from the 19th century into the 20th. It is argued that the modern construction of the history of these monuments entailed the careful selection, manipulation, and regulation of the past by both the colonial and later postcolonial states. Although framed as objective 'archival' truths, these histories were meant to erase or marginalise the powerful and persistent affective appropriations of the monuments by groups who often existed outside the centre of power. By analysing these archival and affective histories together, Rajagopalan works to redefine the historic monument - far from a symbol of a specific past, the monument is shown in 'Building Histories' to be a culturally mutable object with multiple stories to tell.includes bibliographical references and index