Worried the World Is Falling Apart? That’s OK. It’s Happened Before. A review of two new books www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/b...

How did Mughal understandings of the historical past evolve and change over time? This is the question explored in my new essay, which focuses particularly on the early eighteenth century. It is open access, and I look forward to your comments. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Second scientist recruited to PRC in the past two days. There is more of this to come and much more happening at lower levels: www.scmp.com/news/china/s...

Mughal Emperor Alamgir's advice in Braja-Bhasha: Pt. Lajjaram Mehta wrote abt a 'Hitopdesh' (beneficial advice) manuscript that was passed down in his family. It had Alamgir's advice as heard by one Shankar Pant. Was translated from Alamgir's 'Yāminī bhākhā' (Persian?) to Braja dohas

A history that raises a question

Grierson, The Modern Vernacular Literature of Hindustan, 1889

Applications for our 2025-27 ECR Fellowships @ihr.bsky.social close on 31 Jan 2025 For full details and how to apply see below: www.history.ac.uk/fellowships/...

kosambi did not mince words

This fascinating new book by Sunila Kalé and Christian Novetzke shows us #yoga in a refreshingly unconventional light: its political and even militant applications over history. cup.columbia.edu/book/the-yog...

Baig’s mushaira is the portrait of a #Delhi and a way of life that now solely exists in the collective memory of ‘Dehli-wallahs’. It was a powerful urge to record the city’s older face in photographic detail. Read my translation of the urdu classic "Dehli ki aakhri shama"

Pakistani dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq shaking hands with National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski; President Jimmy Carter stands by, 3 October 1980.

This is an incredibly ambitious paper, my god. (with a bunch of interesting implications)

The annual American Historical Association meeting is in NYC in Jan. Every year (since 2006 or so), I count how many papers this gathering has on Iraq and/or Afghanistan. It has never ever been more than 5. This year's count is 2.

Four year departmental lectureship in Modern Chinese History. This position is based at the China Centre at St Hugh’s College, close to central Oxford. This is a full-time, fixed-term position until 31 August 2029. Details here: tinyurl.com/57nku4u5

A six-week journey beginning in Beirut and proceeding by way of Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran, down along the Zagros range, and then up the Helmand river valley to Kabul. Seems unlikely ever to be possible, but that's probably my #1 bucket trip concept.

Adventures in the Indies

"Medicinal Property of Owl's Body Organs" Folio from Manāfiʿ al-Ḥayawān (Usefulness of Animals), early 14th century, Tabriz, Iran

A short Q&A about *Disrupted City* with my employer's news service

Russia’s version of what happened this week is very funny. Points for comedy & creativity. “As a result of the negotiations held between B. Assad and a number of participants in the armed conflict … he decided to leave the post” www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/1...

Here's my latest article: "Wearing Many Hats: Chinese Muslim General Bai Chongxi and the Chinese Muslim Association during the War of Resistance." It's Open Access and free to read/download! brill.com/view/journal...

On #islands, #law and the making of #maritime sovereignty in the Indian Ocean - the first essay from a new bk idea that I am working on w/ support from ACLS: #History #MaritimeHistory #legalhistory.

Extraordinary anecdote about U.S. vs Chinese diplomacy in Africa 👇: the U.S. team were speaking with their African counterparts in French via translators whilst Chinese diplomats had actually gone through the effort of learning the local African language.

For History Compass, I wrote about new directions in the study of the history of technology in modern South Asia. I explored the potential of these historiographic trends through poetic laments of an early 20th-century railway carpenter named ‘Abdul ‘Aziz in Lahore...

Let's normalize reading stacks of books at the dining room table (and being photographed doing so).

Not sure why all the desi hate against turkey. I’m a brown fan of turkey. Once a year, that is.

Call for Papers for the Yale Modern South Asia Workshop, to be held June 7-8, 2025. Travel, accommodation, and meals will be provided to all selected candidates for the duration of the Workshop in South Asia. macmillan.yale.edu/southasia/mo...

Rich discussion, including interesting concluding arguments by @paulmcgarr.bsky.social on the powerful limitations of foreign intelligence agencies to change the “political weather” in big, complex societies like India.

Writing an article on the 19th/early-20th-c. British scholar T.W. Arnold, friend & collaborator with S. Ahmad Khan, Shibli Nu'mani, & Iqbal, & author of the "The Preaching of Islam." I'll post more later. For now, he may have been the 1st who had the phrase "Islamic Studies" in his acad title 1/

I’ve begun a historians of South Asia (broadly defined) starter pack, let me know if you want to be added go.bsky.app/zUV84F

This is a book, from @itihaasnaama.bsky.social and Ornit Shani, that is most eagerly awaited. The Indian public took an active part in the process of the making of the constitution.

The Mughal Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) seemed to be quite fond of the little get-together he organized in August 1617:

My favourite archive in India, at NCBS in Bengaluru, is looking for a distinguished professor to work with their collections.

महंगाई मार गई. Inflation is on the top of everyone's mind, particularly the middle class. And it is pretty serious.

Reminder! The Humanities in Translation (HiT!) prize competition is still open, do please spread the word! @nupress.bsky.social @buffettinstitute.bsky.social nupress.northwestern.edu/humanities-i...

'The Dream of Zulaykha', painted by Mughal artists 100 years apart. Left painting from 1670 (Amer Album), right one from 1770 (Lucknow). Joseph (Yusuf), a paragon of beauty, appears to Zulaykha in her dreams. In the left pic he is dressed in very typical Mughal muslin garments.

Cute, but for the fact that no middle class existed in 14th century Delhi to appreciate the supposedly lenient taxation policies of Ghiyas ud-din tuqhlaq

A depiction of the infamous assassination attempt on Mughal Emperor Akbar,made from the roof of Maham Begum's Madarsa (Khairul Manazil,Delhi). Akbar was returning from Nizamuddin Dargah. The outer shells of the busy shops in the painting can still be seen next to Khairul Manazil opposite Delhi zoo.

The key stages of Robert Caro’s research and writing process (mainline it)

Hugo Grotius on Jean Bodin

laszlo krasznahorkais "destruction and sorrow beneath the heavens", by casting 2005 China in his usual bleak, hysterical style, really captures what a lot of accounts of that time don't; that more than 1911 or 1967, Chinese capitalism really was something apocalyptic

Same picture when you look at infrastructure: today, India's expressway network is just 5,930 kilometers long (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Express...), 22 years after construction of the network began. It's the same length as Malaysia's network, a country with just 34 million people to India's 1.4 billion

A sharp essay on the contradictions inherent in the unremitting proliferation of "decolonization talk."

Annals of Early Modern Persian: _qaidi farang_, A kind of fetter used by Europeans, (metaphorically) imprisonment from which there is no escape;