Bangladesh is a new name for an old land whose history is little known to the wider world. A country chiefly famous in the West for media images of poverty, underdevelopment, and natural disasters, Bangladesh did not exist as an independent state until 1971. Willem van Schendel's history reveals the country's vibrant, colourful past and its diverse culture as it navigates the extraordinary twis…
A brilliant linguist, Sir Ernest Satow (1843–1929) was recruited into the British consular service as a student interpreter in 1861. The following year he arrived in Japan, where he witnessed the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji restoration of imperial rule. Drafted in the 1880s while he was consul-general in Bangkok, this 1921 account is based on the voluminous diaries Satow…
An honorary professor of Sanskrit and Hindu law at Fort William College in Calcutta, and a key figure in the foundation of the Royal Asiatic Society, Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765–1837) became Britain's foremost orientalist during the early nineteenth century. Taking up the reins of Sanskrit scholarship following the death of Sir William Jones (1746–94), Colebrooke made several substantial …