カテゴリー: History books
The historian on being stunned silent by Mick Jagger, his favourite sandwich filling and the seventh century Indian king he wants to have dinner withAs an expert in Indian history, who is your favourite character you wish more people knew about?I’d lik…
Esteemed foreign correspondent Jon Lee Anderson’s new book offers a full accounting of life in Afghanistan from before 9/11 to nowJon Lee Anderson is “not done with Afghanistan”, despite having reported on it for more than 40 years, through invasions, …
Economist who reassessed Karl Marx’s view of the durability of capitalism and wrote on Indian culture and historyAn economist with a strong grasp of politics, Meghnad Desai, who has died aged 85, put telling the truth ahead of the pursuit of personal a…
A deeply researched history that examines colonial and post-colonial faultlines, from Aden to MyanmarEarlier this summer, amid renewed tensions between India and Pakistan following a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, Donald Trump remarke…
This summer will mark 80 years since the attacks stunned the world. Today, every one of the crew members who carried out the bombings is dead. Here, one of the last writers to interview them reopens his files‘It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shi…
Paleographer, historian and expert on ancient Chinese writingQiu Xigui, who has died aged 89, first made his mark as a paleographer, a scholar of ancient writing, through researching Chinese “oracle bones”. These are divinations inscribed on animal sca…
The flow of knowledge to Europe on maths, astronomy and much more has gone unacknowledged by historians. In AD628, an Indian sage living on a mountain in Rajasthan made one of the world’s most important mathematical discoveries. The great mathematicia…
West should address ‘colonisation of the present’ and not focus on past, argues David Van ReybrouckCities in the global north that curb their carbon emissions are doing more to address colonial injustices than those who focus their efforts on taking do…
The academic’s discursive, wonderfully enjoyable account of South Asia’s journey from a British colony to three independent nations is a classicThe sudden rise of India over the past few years has taken many western observers by surprise. The Indian ec…
From a Jacobean traveller’s travails in Sindh to the tangled roots of Nigeria, our pick of new nonfiction books that shine a light on Asia, Africa and South America• Share your top recommendations for books on the developing world in the comments below…
Journalist and historian of China who went from admiring the regime to being one of its sternest criticsJonathan Mirsky, who has died aged 88, was a prominent American historian of China who switched to journalism and won the international reporter of …
It is true that before British rule, India was starting to fall behind other parts of the world – but many of the arguments defending the Raj are based on serious misconceptions about India’s past, imperialism and history itselfThe British empire in In…
Author of Plain Tales from the Raj, and historian concerned with ’relearning’ the role of orientalists in south AsiaCharles Allen, who has died of cancer aged 80, interviewed the last generation of British administrators of India in 1974 for the BBC ra…