February 2019
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Our most popular podcasts & a personal dilemma
A BrownCast update from Zack: the most downloaded episodes, led by Genetics and India, with listeners favouring China, Islam and military history over Indian art and culture. He also describes…
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Review: Directorate S
Major Amin reviews Steve Coll’s Directorate S and finds it deeply flawed, citing errors of geography and fact. He argues that US analysts overrated Al Qaeda while the real players…
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BrownCast Podcast episode 13: The British Indian Army
Omar talks to Major Agha Humayun Amin and Dr Hamid Hussain about the British Indian Army: the East India Company’s army, the 1857 mutiny, the army afterwards, and the role…
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The Art of Ta’arof
The author shares a well-written older blog article by Zohreh Ghahremani on ta’arof, the untranslatable Persian code of courtesy and offers, noting that it can mix hospitality with traces of…
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Open Thread – Brown Pundits
Open thread, 5 February 2019, noting that two forthcoming podcast episodes, one on Indian military history and one with a Hindu nationalist, are available on the patron page.
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Review: The Buddha and the Sahibs and Ashoka—The Search for India’s Lost Emperor
Sunil Koswatta reviews Charles Allen’s two books on how British Orientalists rediscovered Ashoka and the Buddha. It praises Allen’s storytelling and the honest scholars among the sahibs, and dwells on…
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Two Dosas
A short film about a love story set in an Indian restaurant, shared with a note that the author could not find the Western pop video he was looking for.
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Review: In Their Own Words, Understanding Lashkar e Tayyaba
by C Christine Fair
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How Pakistan Got Divided
Major Amin reviews General Rao Farman Ali’s How Pakistan Got Divided and finds it another disappointing book that whitewashes the real causes of 1971. He argues ethnicity was decisive, tracing…
