Recently Published…
Chrestomatherin Italy by Alessandro Vescovi (Le Lettere, Florence, 2011) Alessandro tells me…
Occupy Art!
'Occupy Art' might be the name by which the Arte Povera movement would be known had it been launched in this decade instead of the 1960s. Despite the…
World’s First Oil Tanker, Built by Nobel Bros., was called ‘Zoroaster’
From Shernaz Italia, a curious tale of 'connectedness', taken from: 'Stansberry’s Investment Advisory,' November 2011. The article is titled 'America’s Oil Boom'. 'Robert Nobel (Sir Alfred…
Letter from a Photographer
Dear Amitav, I’d been planning to write a letter to you for quite a while but either I was being too lazy or…
Are the Rich Worth a Damn or a Daam?
On the cover of the New York Times Magazine this weekend was a question, printed in large type: ‘Are the Rich Worth a Damn?’ What does ‘damn’ mean here?…
Chitra Sankaran’s New Publications
From Singapore Chitra Sankaran writes: 'I wanted to let you know that the edited volume on your novels entitled History, Narrative and Testimony in Amitav Ghosh's Fiction is finally…
More on Goa’s Slaves: There were also many Bengalis
My post on Goa's Japanese slaves has elicited some interesting responses. From Lucano Alvares, now in Merida, Mexico: 'This is most fascinating, even more so because of its…
Heartbreaks of the Archive
John-Paul Ghobrial, is a Cambridge historian who is working on the life of Elias of Babylon, a 17th century Christian traveler from Mesopotamia. He describes his project as…
Goa’s Japanese slaves
I met Daniel Botsman recently in New Haven, Connecticut. An Australian by origin, he is a scholar of Japanese history and teaches at Yale. When he heard of…
Opportunity for a working holiday in India
Karina Corrigan is the principal curator for 'Asian Export Art' at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Karina in one of the museum's spectacular…