When defenders of the British royal family scrounged around for dirt on Wallis Simpson, the divorced US-born fiancée of King Edward VIII, they often highlighted her year spent in China—often sharing scurrilous, and poorly-sourced, if not entirely unfounded, details of her time there.
Majapahit was Indonesia, and Southeast Asia’s, largest empire. Centered on the island of Java, Majapahit commanded loyalty from vassals across the archipelago: on Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, and even the Malay Peninsula, including a tiny village called Tumasik—known today as Singapore. The empire lasted for around 230 years, from its founding in 1292 to its fall…
During the Second World War, FDR promised thousands of tons of US material to Chiang Kai Shek in order to keep China in the war and keep Japan distracted. But how would the US get it there? The only land route had been cut off by the Japanese invasion, leaving only one other option: air.
Vikas Swarup’s new novel, The Girl With the Seven Lives, opens with its main character Devi locked in a room, forced to retell her life’s story. Or, rather, her life’s stories–starting in the slums of Delhi, Devi reinvents herself time-and-time-again, with a new name and a new backstory, as she tries to carve a niche…
Whether it’s in commerce or conflict, today’s world pays rapt attention to the Persian Gulf. But the centrality of the Gulf to world history stretches far beyond the oil age—its ancient ports created the first proper trading system and the launching point for the spread of global Islam.
A Slight Angle, the newest novel from Indian writer Ruth Vanita, is a story about love. Difficult love—her six characters are growing up in 1920s India, which takes a dim view of same-sex relationships, and those that transcend religious boundaries. Like Sharad, the jewelry designer who falls in love with his teacher, Abhik—only for the…
Today, the Hong Kong Philharmonic is one of the world’s great symphony orchestras. But when John Duffus landed in Hong Kong in 1979 as the Philharmonic’s general manager—its fifth in as many years—he quickly learned just how much work needed to be done to make a Western symphony orchestra work in a majority Chinese city.
Frederick Rutland—”Rutland of Jutland”—was a war hero, renowned World War I aviator … and a Japanese spy. In the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, Rutland shared information on US aviation and naval developments to the Japanese, desperate for knowledge of US capability.
In 1955, the leaders of 29 Asian and African countries flock to the small city of Bandung, Indonesia, for the first-ever Afro-Asian conference. India and its prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru played a key role in organizing the conference, and Bandung is now seen as a part of Nehru’s push to create a non-Western foreign policy…
Which society was the first to domesticate the horse? It’s a difficult question. The archaeological record is spotty, with only very recent advancements in genetics and carbon dating allowing scientists to really test centuries-old legends about where horses came from.For example, historians argued that the Botai civilization in Kazakhstan provided some of the earliest evidence…
Maya, the protagonist of Rohit Manchanda’s novel The Enclave, should be happy with her life. She’s newly single, her net worth steadily rising in the booming India of the 2000s. She has a cushy, if slightly unfulfilling, job in academia. But she struggles: She wants to write, but can’t summon the energy to do so….
From Pashas to Pokemon (Vishwakarma Publications, 2024), Maaria Sayed’s first novel, is a coming-of-age story. Aisha grows up in the Muhammad Ali Road neighborhood of Mumbai in the ’90s—a time when India was starting to grapple with liberalization, globalization, and polarization. In Mumbai and London, Aisha tries to learn what it means to grow up,…
In the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I tried to send several letters to her Chinese counterpart, the Wan Li Emperor. The letters tried to ask the Ming emperor to conduct trade relations with faraway England; none of the expeditions carrying the letters ever arrived. It’s an inauspicious beginning to the four centuries of foreign relations…
On January 16, 1945, dozens of US Navy aircraft took off for China’s southern coast, including the occupied British colony of Hong Kong. It was part of Operation Gratitude, an exercise to target airfields, ports, and convoys throughout the South China Sea. US pilots bombed targets in Hong Kong and, controversially, in neutral Macau as…
Macau was supposed to be a sleepy post for John Reeves, the British consul for the Portuguese colony on China’s southern coast. He arrived, alone, in June 1941, his wife and daughter left behind in China. Seven months later, Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, invaded Hong Kong, and made Reeves the last remaining British diplomat…