Pratinav Anil

Trench at Bud Dajo during the Moro Rebellion, 1906. Library of Congress. Public Domain.

‘Massacre in the Clouds’ by Kim A. Wagner review

In Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History, Kim A. Wagner offers a blow-by-blow account of Bud Dajo. But is the devil truly in the detail?

A bustling Kolkata street scene from Chitpur Road, late 19th century, by Dr. Kurt Boeck. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public Domain.

Shadows at Noon by Joya Chatterji review

Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century by Joya Chatterji is a gently revisionist account of an enduring, if ever-tottering, democracy.

Treason of the Clerics

For 600 years Muslims held sway over the Indian subcontinent. Then democracy and a desultory leadership did them in.

Swami Vivekananda, September, 1893, Chicago, On the left Vivekananda wrote in his own handwriting: "One infinite pure and holy – beyond thought beyond qualities I bow down to thee."

‘Guru to the World’ by Ruth Harris review

Guru to the World: The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda by Ruth Harris uncovers the Hindu guru’s life of epiphanies and contradictions.

Winston Churchill with a Tommy Gun, Hartlepool, 1940.

War Orgasms

Assessing the Churchill balance sheet.

Billiard Balls

What were Indian nationalists thinking?

Zoroastrian Zeligs

Questioning the powerful Tata dynasty’s claims for a ‘different kind of capitalism’.