Asian Review of Books Podcast
1) Namit Arora and Romila Thapar, "Speaking of History: Conversations about India’s Past and Present" (India Allen Lane, 2025)
What does it mean to be a historian? How do you try to explain the past when sources are lacking? And how do we talk about history when it’s so politicized? In the new book Speaking of History: Conve...Show More
2) Imran Mulla, "The Indian Caliphate, Exiled Ottomans and the Billionaire Prince" (Hurst, 2025)
In 1924, the Republic of Turkey voted to abolish the Ottoman caliphate, ending a 400-year-long claim by the Ottomans that they were the leaders of the Islamic world. Abdülmecid II—who had been elected...Show More
3) Sean Mathews, "The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East" (Hurst, 2025)
Where does Greece belong? Many look at the ancient Greek ruins of Athens, and see the cradle of Western civilization. But much of Greece’s history actually looks eastward to the rest of the Mediterran...Show More
4) Suraj Milind Yengde, "Caste: A Global Story" (Hurst, 2025)
Caste has been a huge topic of conversation in modern India. Yet debates and activism around caste discrimination have spread beyond South Asia. Caste activists looked to African-American literature a...Show More
5) Joseph Torigian, "The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Xi Zhongxun’s career spanned the entirety of China’s modern history. Born just two years after the 1911revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty, Xi was an early member of the Chinese Communist Party...Show More
6) Andrew Bernstein, "Fuji: A Mountain In The Making" (Princeton UP, 2025)
The Great Wave is perhaps the most famous piece of Japanese artwork: a roaring blue wave and three boats on the ocean. And far in the background is Mt. Fuji. And that’s actually what Hokusai’s famous ...Show More
7) Steve Tibble, "Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood" (Yale UP, 2025)
The Assassins and the Templars. Two groups that are now part of popular legend–and not just because of Assassin’s Creed, the massive video game franchise starring the former as its heroes, and the lat...Show More
8) Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History" (U California Press, 2025)
In 1924, the Al-A‘waj, also known as the Crooked, set sail from Kuwait on a trading journey around the Persian Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz, to Western India and, eventually, back to the Gulf. D...Show More
9) Ludovic Orlando, "Horses: A 4,000-Year Genetic Journey Across the World" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In 2016, Ludovic Orlando, a genetics researcher, embarked on the Pegasus Project, an ambitious endeavor to use genetics to discover the origin of the modern horse. There were plenty of theories as to ...Show More
10) Justin Marozzi, "Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World" (Pegasus Books, 2025)
Slavery has been a ubiquitous practice throughout much of world history–and the Muslim world was no exception. Slave soldiers, concubines, and eunuchs can be found throughout Muslim writings—which, as...Show More