May 2020
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Brownpundits Browncast episode 100: Creating a New Medina, Venkat Dhulipala
In Browncast Episode 100, the hosts talk to historian Venkat Dhulipala about his book Creating a New Medina, on state power, Islam and the quest for Pakistan in late colonial…
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Causes of the Revolt of 1857
In a long piece by Major Amin, presented unedited, the causes of the 1857 rebellion are traced from India’s geography of repeated invasions through the socio-political conditions of the period,…
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India, Pakistan, TNT
Two tweets set side by side: one urging Pakistanis to see themselves as Muslims within India’s ancient civilisation, the other insisting that the only identity is ‘Muslim’, with an Ertuğrul…
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Browncast Episode 99: Carl Zha on the new Cold War, and marrying a Hindu
In Browncast Episode 99, Razib talks to repeat guest Carl Zha, host of the Silk and Steel podcast, about the new Cold War, the controversies around him, including claims he…
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The War Over Myth
The author takes Harari’s claim that shared myth let Cro-Magnons overcome Neanderthals and argues that myth continues to drive conflict between closely related peoples, from Athens and Sparta to Greeks…
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Open Thread, 04/07/2020 Brown Pundits
Open thread of 7 May 2020: asks readers to move the week’s conversations into this post and proposes a Zoom call at 12:30 PM India time.
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People of Indian ancestry need to learn things outside of India or they will sound stupid
Razib Khan answers a commenter who compares Islamic invasions of India to Christian conquests in the Americas, arguing the Spanish aimed to extract rents rather than slaughter, that disease caused…
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Afghanistan, Next Round
Hamid Hussain assesses Afghanistan after the February 2020 US-Taliban agreement, arguing that disputes over prisoner exchange and ceasefire continue to stall progress, the Taliban reject ceasefire calls to keep leverage…
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AASI Y chromosomal lineage: haplogroup C
Razib Khan notes that Y haplogroup C, found in South Asian groups without East Asian ancestry, diversified about 50,000 years ago between Australians, Papuans and Indians, making it a likely…
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A collective religion in an individualistic age
Razib Khan argues that Kurds embracing Zoroastrianism show why people leaving Islam may reasonably return to ancestral faiths, treats the objection that ancestors weren’t really Hindu as pedantic, and notes…
