History

The battle over the past is ultimately a battle over how a civilisation understands itself. AI generated image It is a celebrated maxim that history repeats itself—first as tragedy, second... Read More

A civilisation defends its history not by silencing uncomfortable narratives, but by creating generations strong enough to question every narrative. Manan Ahmed Asif History is not merely a record of... Read More

Paying respect to Vande Mataram is not about endorsing any party or government but is a tribute to the freedom struggle where countless Indians from all states created a singular... Read More

The neglect of Bengal’s women revolutionaries mirrors a deeper failure to uphold the dignity and rights of women in the state today. Matangini Hazra featured on an Indian Stamp Bengali... Read More

Vladimir Dedijer’s long-neglected The Road to Sarajevo remains one of the finest guides to the assassination that changed the course of the twentieth century. Later this month, on July 28th,... Read More

There are a few places in India where a walk of less than a kilometre can take you through more than a century of the nation’s memory. In Amritsar, it... Read More

As the United States marks its semiquincentennial, its finest histories reveal a restless nation unable to escape the foundational neurosis of its own creation. Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851), by... Read More

A diplomatic row over a wartime nationalist force exposes centuries of contested memory between Poland and Ukraine. Memorials to the victims of Volhynia remain central to Polish historical memory. “How... Read More

Long before the ‘Out of India’ theory, a forgotten Victorian orientalist turned the foundations of Western civilization upside down by audaciously making India the cradle of Greece. What if Greece,... Read More

As Majapahit crumbled and Islam reshaped the archipelago, Bali emerged as the unlikely custodian of Java’s classical inheritance. The last article in this column discussed how Java held a uniquely... Read More