Jainism, an older contemporary of Buddhism, is rooted in the ideals of austerity. While Buddhism spread outside India, very little is known about Jainism worldwide. Similarly, in terms of art, it is subsumed within the larger Hindu and Buddhist traditions of rock-cut architecture. In terms of painting, the Kalpasutra and Uttaradhyaynasutra are two texts thought to date from at least 2000 years ago, have traditionally come with illustrations. However, beyond these examples, post-medieval Jain art has largely remained off the popular and scholarly radar. A recent set of essays looks at the ways in which this tradition developed new expressions.
Category Archive: Non-Fiction
In 1998, Ma Baoli, a closeted gay police officer living in Hebei, China, stumbled on the online novel Beijing Story while visiting an alleyway internet café. Deeply moved by its tale of gay romance, Ma’s life was changed forever, not just by the discovery of media made for gay men, but by the internet as a platform for media consumption and connection. Two decades later, Ma would be CEO of Blued, the “largest gay social networking app in the world.” But it wouldn’t last.
Ghosted: Delhi’s Haunted Monuments delves into the often-overlooked monuments of Delhi through the lens of jinns, Sufi saints and the horror tales associated with them, revealing both the brutality and humanity embedded in the collective history of the monuments and those who are tethered to them. Historian Eric Chopra contends that “to make sense of its antiquity is an overwhelming process for it’s a city that has witnessed 100,000 years of presence” and that in the light of the city’s long exposure to invasion and migration it “must be haunted”.
Robert Strange McNamara was arguably one of the worst public servants in post-World War II American history. Decades after the Vietnam War ended, McNamara, who served as US Defense Secretary in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, admitted that as early as 1965 he believed that the United States could not win that war yet he orchestrated and publicly supported the Americanization of the war, sending more than 500,000 American servicemen to fight in what he believed was a hopeless cause. All the while, he kept telling the American people that the US was winning, even as he quietly recommended bombing pauses, troop ceilings, and negotiations with the North Vietnamese.
Kay Enokido was the longtime president of the stately Hays-Adams hotel in Washington, DC, hosting dignitaries like the Japanese monarchy and the Obama family before the president was sworn in. But before she was a hotelier, and before that a journalist, she had another, earlier story, one that provides the heart of her book, Phantom Paradise: Escape from Manchuria.
The importance of archaeological developments can take a long time to register in the general public consciousness. This is perhaps because excavations take years, results are often published long after the work begins, the significance is not immediately apparent, or conclusions are denied when they run counter to conventional narratives. Keeladi, near Madurai, is a site discovered a decade ago; its significance was appreciated pretty quickly in Tamil Nadu, where it is located, but has rather flown under the radar internationally.
When Bitcoin first became a buzzword among early adopters around 2011, it was spoken of by devotees as a revolutionary force, promising to upend finance much like Jimi Hendrix redefined rock music with his electric guitar riffs. But for ‘normies’ or everyday people, the idea was baffling. How could something intangible, not backed by governments or banks, hold real value? In The Devil Takes Bitcoin: Cryptocurrency Crimes and the Japanese Connection, Jake Adelstein unpacks this world with a gripping narrative that blends true crime, investigative journalism, and cultural insight.
Edmund Burke remarked in 1790 that “… which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation… The reverse also happens: and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions.” The course of the French Revolution soon proved him right. Two Paths to Prosperity reaffirms Burke’s insight on an even grander stage. Avner Greif, Guido Tabellini and Nobel laureate Joel Mokyr bring contemporary social science to bear on the key junctures in European and Chinese history. Along the way, they explore the most fundamental causes of growth, freedom, and innovation that led to the Industrial Revolution and still matter today.
“The goal of this book”, writes Rian Thum in his introduction, “is to reach an understanding of Islamic Chinese history that makes the Muslims of China unsurprising, even ordinary.” The layman who has visited, say, Xi’an, might be surprised that this should be deemed necessary.
On 9 August 1965, Singapore was expelled from Malaysia, which had itself only become an independent country two years earlier. But Malaysia insisted that Malaysian troops be permitted to remain in Singapore. Singapore’s future Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew later said that Malaysia’s insistence “stiffened our resolve” to “build up the Singapore Armed Forces”. The person primarily responsible for doing that is the subject of Ramachandran Menon’s new book Kirpa Ram Vij: The Volunteer Who Launched an Army.
You must be logged in to post a comment.