The Shimabara Rebellion of 1637-38 has long been a shadowy footnote in Japanese history: an uprising of poor farmers and hidden Christians, crushed with such ferocity that 37,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered at Hara Castle. In most textbooks it garners a brief mention, a prelude to the closing of Japan, when the Tokugawa…
The number of books incorporating “the Idea of India” into their title in recent times is indicative that this idea has been in a crisis for a while. Siddhartha Sarma’s Carpenters and Kings is one more response to this crisis of India, dealing with an oft-ignored population group. In an environment where the Hindu Right…
East is East, and West is West, but the twain did meet and influenced each other unpredictably. For instance, the post-colonial Asia encountered Christianity during its first interactions with the West. The fruit of such a meeting is the post-colonial religion that is practiced in different parts of the continent as Christianity. Jesus is a…
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