by Aseem Gupta | Feb 3, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
When Kim Jong Il died in December 2011, television footage from North Korea showed crowds collapsing in grief. Men and women sobbed in streets and public squares. Some clutched one another for support. Others beat the frozen ground with their hands as the funeral...
by Aseem Gupta | Feb 2, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
China is often described as a civilisation with five thousand years of continuous history. The phrase captures something real: an exceptionally long tradition of writing, political thought, historical memory and cultural inheritance. Yet it can also create a...
by Aseem Gupta | Feb 1, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
Where does the history of the United States begin? It cannot begin in 1776, because the society that declared independence had already been shaped by more than a century of colonisation, slavery, religious conflict, imperial warfare and local self-government. It...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 31, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
At its height, the British Empire governed roughly a quarter of the world’s land and population. Its territories stretched from Canada and the Caribbean to Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and scattered islands across the world’s oceans. British...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 30, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
Britain still has a king, but not a ruler in the medieval sense. King Charles III opens Parliament, receives ambassadors, appoints a prime minister, grants Royal Assent to legislation and performs ceremonies saturated with ancient symbolism. Yet he does not decide tax...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 29, 2016 | History, Empires & Civilizations
The history of the United Kingdom begins long before there was a United Kingdom—and even before Britain was permanently an island. England, Britain, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom are often used as though they were interchangeable. They are not. England is one...
