Asia

Fraser Newham finds a connection running from the East India Company’s first mission to Tibet to the completion of the Golmud to Lhasa railway by the Chinese today.

The Asian influenza epidemic of 1957 killed more than 16,000 people in Britain and more than a million globally. It exposed the fragility of the antibiotic age.

The Mughal emperor died on 25 October 1605.

Tamerlane, or Timur, one of history's most brutal butchers, died on 18 February 1405.

Rhoads Murphey reflects on a thousand years of Turkic cultural development.

Rikki Kersten extols the example of an unlikely hero, the historian Ienaga Saburo, who singlehandedly challenged Japan’s official view of responsibility for its behaviour in the Second World War.

Denis Judd takes stock of current arguments as to the effect of British rule in India and other countries of the Empire.

William Clarance explores the origins and complexities of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Ian Mabbett considers how Buddhism, while preaching the rejection of society, simultaneously became a popular religion.