From the perspective of the people who have worked and lived there since 1862, when it was a fishing village, rather than of the imperial powers who controlled it.
Unlike Dalrymple's The Anarchy, this deals just with the East India Company's early years. Howarth argues that it was more European than English in spirit.
A brilliant narrative of the interconnected lives of two Renaissance Portuguese men whose travels to India and China unseated contemporary certainties. Dazzling.
The author is a distinguished historian; as professor of British history at Stanford, she has a commanding view of the Empire and its changing narratives. Original and well-informed.
Demonstrates how constitutions evolved in tandem with warfare, and how they have functioned to advance empire as well as promote nations, and worked to exclude as well as liberate. LC is a b... read more
A many-layered memoir from the Pulitzer-winning author of The Sympathizer: the American dream, the Vietnam War, the life of the refugee, adoption, violence, identity.
The story of the first contact between the Haida and other indigenous peoples of the Pacific North West with Europeans - and what came after. Told very powerfully in a graphic form that comb... read more
The 60 years following the Portuguese arrival in the Moluccas in 1511 saw an epic global struggle for the sources and distribution of this new geyser of wealth. Told with verve and authority... read more
A first edition, first impression of William Dalrymple's evocative and riveting portrayal of the last days of the Mughal empire and of Zafar, its last emperor. The book is in fine condition ... read more
He ruled an area of the Indian subcontinent greater than anyone until the British 2000 years later; famously he renounced war for Buddhism and promoted religious toleration throughout his mu... read more
Somerset Maugham appears as one of two narrators in this atmospheric novel of love, truth, secrecy and betrayal in 1920s' colonial Penang. Eng's airy storytelling is a rare gift: he gives hi... read more
Turkel was born in a Chinese 're-education' camp, and finally got to the US where he trained as a lawyer, specialising in Uyghur activism. This is his account of China's horrendous oppressio... read more
Islands of banishment approached through three lives: New Caledonia in the South Pacific, where Louise Michel, grandmother of French anarchy and a leader in theParis Commune, was sent for s... read more
The author's ancestors made their fortunes through slaves and sugar. The fortune was lost but the letters were preserved: this is a powerful investigation of an Imperial past which is widely... read more
A teacher of photography on a New England campus remembers his West African childhood: Cole may be writing about himself here. The novel is a subtle, quiet exploration of memory, the passage... read more
The Chagos Archipelago was appropriated from Mauritius by Britain in the 1960s and its inhabitants deported (with one suitcase each) to Mauritius and the UK in 1967-1973 to make way for the ... read more
Another slim, powerful novel from this excellent writer: as in The Order of the Day, he shows the web of overlapping and competing interests amongst politicians, industrialists and financier... read more
First edition, first printing, in fine condition with a very good jacket. The spine is sun-faded and there is minimal shelf wear. Cerulean boards are straight; the page block is firm. Black ... read more