The Sole Survivor of the Retreat from Kabul

How did a trading company, ostensibly formed for commerce, come to rule most of the Indian subcontinent and its millions of people for over 50 years? In The Anarchy, historian William Dalrymple charts the rise of the English East India Company during the 17th and 18th centuries, from a small outfit of merchants into the imperialist superpower that established British colonial rule in India.

Dalrymple is an award-winning Delhi-based historian who has written extensively on European colonialism in the Eastern hemisphere. Our guide explores how the English East India Company rose to power by exploiting a period of chaos and instability in India—when the once-powerful Mughal Empire had collapsed into smaller kingdoms that vied to fill the power vacuum. In the midst of this anarchy, the English East India Company forged alliances, backed coups, installed puppet rulers, and built the largest army on Earth. Our commentary delves into background historical context, the fallout from these events, views from other historians, and political theory that sheds light on the company's machinations.

Why does it seem as though the Middle East is plagued by conflict? Why does democracy there feel fragile? Historian David Fromkin asked himself those questions and pored through secret documents, bureaucrats’ letters, and politicians’ journals to uncover why: The current state of the Middle East is largely due to decisions Europe made during and after World War I.

Before this war, countries like Israel, Jordan, and Syria didn’t exist—they were all part of the Ottoman Empire. Following World War I, Europe dismantled the Ottoman Empire, created new countries and borders, and chose new leaders, remaking it into a territory useful to Europe’s aims. However, these decisions created dilemmas the Middle East still grapples with.

This guide organizes Fromkin’s findings from his book A Peace to End All Peace (1989) into three stages: before, during, and after World War I. Within each stage, we explore the key decisions that shaped the modern Middle East. We also provide additional historical context and alternative viewpoints on these historical events.

In The Silk Roads, historian Peter Frankopan identifies Central and Western Asia as the crossroads of human civilization, the birthplace of the world’s major religions, the battleground where the great empires of history rose and fell, and the garden from which today’s global economy first sprouted. He argues that understanding the East is crucial to our understanding of the world—particularly for Westerners who have lost this global perspective.

In ancient times, trade routes known as the Silk Roads first brought European merchants to the luxury markets of the East, enabling the flow of both material goods and ideas from East to West. According to Frankopan, the Silk Roads have always been history’s crucial connection point, spreading not just luxury goods like silk and spices, but also technology, religion, languages, cultures, ideologies, and even conflicts and diseases. In this guide, we explore Frankopan’s history of the Silk Roads, while also incorporating insights and feedback from other scholars to supplement his analysis.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers is a 2012 nonfiction account of the lives of residents of a slum in Mumbai called Annawadi, which sat adjacent to the Mumbai International Airport. U.S. author and journalist Katherine Boo follows the stories of a handful of the slum’s residents, including that of Abdul Husain, whose family’s fight with a neighbor changes the course of his life.

The poverty and hardship faced by the slum’s people reflect a globalized world—offering more wealth and supposedly more opportunity, but where many still struggle to survive day to day. The poor try to exploit one another to get ahead, and government officials and agencies exploit the poor, leaving them with little power and few resources.

Why does it seem as though the Middle East is plagued by conflict? Why does democracy there feel fragile? Historian David Fromkin asked himself those questions and pored through secret documents, bureaucrats’ letters, and politicians’ journals to uncover why: The current state of the Middle East is largely due to decisions Europe made during and after World War I.

Before this war, countries like Israel, Jordan, and Syria didn’t exist—they were all part of the Ottoman Empire. Following World War I, Europe dismantled the Ottoman Empire, created new countries and borders, and chose new leaders, remaking it into a territory useful to Europe’s aims. However, these decisions created dilemmas the Middle East still grapples with.

This guide organizes Fromkin’s findings from his book A Peace to End All Peace (1989) into three stages: before, during, and after World War I. Within each stage, we explore the key decisions that shaped the modern Middle East. We also provide additional historical context and alternative viewpoints on these historical events.

In The Silk Roads, historian Peter Frankopan identifies Central and Western Asia as the crossroads of human civilization, the birthplace of the world’s major religions, the battleground where the great empires of history rose and fell, and the garden from which today’s global economy first sprouted. He argues that understanding the East is crucial to our understanding of the world—particularly for Westerners who have lost this global perspective.

In ancient times, trade routes known as the Silk Roads first brought European merchants to the luxury markets of the East, enabling the flow of both material goods and ideas from East to West. According to Frankopan, the Silk Roads have always been history’s crucial connection point, spreading not just luxury goods like silk and spices, but also technology, religion, languages, cultures, ideologies, and even conflicts and diseases. In this guide, we explore Frankopan’s history of the Silk Roads, while also incorporating insights and feedback from other scholars to supplement his analysis.

A Promised Land is Barack Obama’s memoir of his early political career and the first two years of his presidency. Obama takes us on his journey from relative obscurity as a biracial kid from Hawaii to becoming a transformative figure as the nation’s first African-American president. At every step of his career, Obama was guided by a deep faith in the fundamental unity of Americans; the potential and promise of America; the necessity of compromise and seeking common ground; and above all, the power of the democratic system to heal our divisions and effect real change for ordinary people.