History

Posts whose main purpose is to explain the past.

Fun fact of the day

A note on Prince William’s maternal ancestor Eliza Kewark, alleged to have been Armenian but at least half Indian, and on the Germanic lineage of European monarchy.

Brown Pundits Archive11 March 20140 comments
“The sole survivor”

William Dalrymple’s account of the India-Pakistan shadow war in Afghanistan, opening with an Indian officer’s experience in Kabul, with the poster’s comment that the wars will end only when elites…

Brown Pundits Archive10 March 20140 comments
The Begums of Bhopal (new edition)

A short history of the Begums of Bhopal, with a news extract on the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan meeting there; the poster sees it as common people replacing a monarch…

Brown Pundits Archive10 March 20140 comments
White Commonwealth will save the world

The poster answers an argument that a ‘White Commonwealth’ could steward the world, saying brown elites may welcome it as an escape from responsibility, and that it whitewashes the fate…

Brown Pundits Archive9 March 20140 comments
The bridge stretches from Pune to Potsdam

An extract on Raghunath Purushottam Paranjpye as a bridge between India and Germany, with the poster noting Germany’s long admiration of Indian culture and asking whether it had anti-Semitic undertones.

Brown Pundits Archive8 March 20141 comment
The (unsung) mutiny (1946)

A 94-year-old eyewitness’s account of the 1946 Royal Indian Navy mutiny, with the poster noting the mutineers were never employed by either the Indian or Pakistani navy.

Brown Pundits Archive4 March 20140 comments
1857

An extract on the 26th Native Infantry’s 1857 mutiny at Mian Mir and the Ajnala well where the mutineers were killed, which the poster calls shared history of Hindus, Sikhs…

Brown Pundits Archive3 March 20140 comments
Crimean War part II

The poster compares Russia’s move to send troops to Crimea with the Crimean War of the 1850s, and expects Crimea’s Muslim Tatars to resist.

Brown Pundits Archive1 March 20140 comments
The Taj is Indian..or is it?

Extracts on Pakistani undergraduates debating whether the Taj Mahal is part of Pakistan’s history, with the poster saying it shows how much studying history matters to national symbols.

Brown Pundits Archive1 March 20140 comments
A world built on Slavery

A comment, with a Juan Cole link, that Haiti spent most of its budget until 1940 compensating slave-owners for its emancipation, and a reader’s question on the one-drop rule and…

Brown Pundits Archive28 February 20140 comments