June 2020
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The Crusades, Wootz/Damascus Steel, Pandanus and Dumbara Mats,
A post on Sri Lanka’s Pandanus species and the blue-flowered Kora-kaha, covering their uses in cooking, coastal protection, Dumbara mats and the yellow dye for monks’ robes, and tenuously linking…
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Lord Indra the brutal!
Assuming an Indo-Aryan intrusion around 1500 BC, Razib Khan estimates 10-20 per cent Indo-Aryan ancestry in the Gangetic plains and argues, from admixture patterns, that the intrusion may have caused…
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The memory of Lord Indra
Razib Khan points to an Irish ancient DNA study of a Neolithic incestuous elite burial that echoes medieval myth, arguing it shows how long oral traditions can preserve memories and…
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Haunted by history
Razib Khan compares how Genghis Khan is remembered, as a hero in Mongolia and a prestigious ancestor to Muslim dynasties despite mass destruction, with attitudes to Aurangzeb, asking how historical…
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Browncast Episode 106: Neha Srivastava, traditionalist Hindu
In Browncast Episode 106, Razib talks to Neha Srivastava, a self-described traditionalist Hindu, about her nonprofit Shaktitva, American and Indian politics, whether she will stay in the US, and what…
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Review: Soldier Sahibs
Omar Ali’s 2002 Herald review of Charles Allen’s Soldier Sahibs finds it an old-fashioned, unapologetically imperial but accurate and readable account of the young British officers who took the Northwest…
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Remembering DIG Lonsdale Niblett, Lahore’s Legendary Policeman
Reproduces an obituary of Lahore police officer Lonsdale Niblett, who died in Virginia aged 93, recalling his career from the Punjab Police in 1947, his choice of Pakistan at Partition…
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After the 1971 Ceasefire: The Officers Who Wrote to Yahya
Reproduces a Pakistani officer’s account of the weeks after the 1971 ceasefire, including a reported letter from officers of 6 Armoured Division asking President Yahya to resign, and the subsequent…
