by Aseem Gupta | Jun 13, 2026 | History, Empires & Civilizations
Hong Kong has spent generations trying to eliminate its triads. Membership in a triad society is itself a criminal offence. Police have infiltrated organisations, arrested office-holders, confiscated proceeds and disrupted businesses ranging from illegal gambling to...
by Aseem Gupta | Mar 15, 2026 | History, Empires & Civilizations
There is no meaningful way to calculate what percentage of India’s history humanity knows. Historical knowledge does not come from counting artefacts alone. It also comes from buildings, inscriptions, coins, manuscripts, landscapes, human remains, environmental...
by Aseem Gupta | Feb 8, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
In the ruins of Hampi, the scale of the vanished city remains difficult to comprehend. Temple towers rise above boulder-strewn hills. Stone bazaars stretch towards sacred complexes. Aqueducts, reservoirs, roads, gateways and palace foundations reveal a capital built...
by Aseem Gupta | Feb 7, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
The Delhi Sultanate’s expansion into the Deccan seemed, for a time, to prove that armies based in northern India could dominate almost the entire subcontinent. Delhi’s commanders raided wealthy capitals, forced powerful kings to submit, carried enormous quantities of...
by Aseem Gupta | Feb 5, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
In 1025, an imperial force from southern India crossed the Bay of Bengal and attacked a chain of ports connected to Srivijaya, the dominant maritime power of Southeast Asia. The campaign reached across a commercial world linking the Tamil coast with Sumatra, the Malay...
by Aseem Gupta | Feb 4, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
More than four thousand years ago, millions of people lived in cities and settlements spread across a vast part of northwestern South Asia. They built neighbourhoods with brick-lined drains, dug hundreds of wells, captured seasonal rainwater in enormous reservoirs,...
