ANNOUNCING A MAJOR NEW @EmpirePodUK SERIES:
IRELAND & EMPIRE
Episode One-
COLONISING IRELAND:
Henry VIII, Elizabeth I & The Tudor Conquest of Ireland
Ireland is the only country in Western Europe that has experienced being colonised in the modern era. It was used by England as a laboratory for imperialism, and was the site of bloody colonial wars for centuries, yet many people in the neighbouring United Kingdom have little understanding of Ireland’s history.
The new @EmpirePodUK series on Ireland & Empire begins with the Tudor Conquest. By the 1500s, there were small pockets of English imperialism in Ireland via descendants of the Anglo-Norman invasions of the 1190s, but they were concentrated along the southeastern coast.
However, when Henry VIII launched the Protestant Reformation in England, establishing control over Ireland suddenly became a top priority. In 1541, he declared all Irish people as his subjects. He built upon previous laws banning Irish language and customs, and created a militarised society. And by Elizabeth I’s reign, the Tudors introduced plantations in Ireland which granted land to English and Scottish settlers.
What sort of democracy ransacks bookshops? The Israeli police just pillaged my brilliant friend Mahmoud Muna's wonderful bookshop opposite the American Colony, the best in Jerusalem. Apparently Muna and his nephew Ahmed have both been arrested & marched into court... theurbanactivist.com/idea/a-booksho…
Muna is a wonderful, wise and learned guy and has encouraged generations of travellers to read more deeply into the contested history of Jerusalem. He recently co-edited this excellent collection of essays on Gaza. I hope @pen_int will immediately take up his case.
"Israeli police raid Jerusalem bookshops and arrest Palestinian owners. Raid on Educational Bookstore branches described by rights groups as part of harassment campaign against Palestinian intellectuals"
Avi Shlaim and Eugene Rogan discuss Avi's Three Worlds: Memoir of an Arab Jew @JaipurLitFest: "Our Jewish community was very well integrated in Baghdad, where we were one minority among many. Europe had a Jewish problem. Iraq did not."
Avi Shlaim: "My mother regarded Zionism as an Ashkenazi thing. She thought it was nothing to do with us. Most of us were very happy in Baghdad."
Avi Shlaim: "When I was working on this book I came across new evidence that the Mossad let off bombs in Jewish premises in Baghdad to frighten us to emigrate to Israel. The evidence is, I believe, incontravertible. I am completely certain that Israel was responsible for the uprooting of the Jewish community of Baghdad."
ZEBRAS & ZODIACS:
JAHANGIR & THE MUGHAL ART REVOLUTION
The Emperor Jahangir was a true connoisseur of beauty. His reign witnessed a flourishing of art, particularly through his patronage of workshops of brilliant artists who between them created a series of extraordinary masterpieces.
The reigns of Jahangir saw the artistic highpoint of the Mughal atelier, and with it the moment of greatest celebrity for the masters at court. Jahangir awarded his two master artists, the brilliant animal painter Mansur and his rival Abu’l Hasan, the titles Nadir al-Zaman, ‘Wonder of the Age,’ and Nadir al-Zaman, “Wonder of the Times.”
Abu’l Hasan seems to have been a particular favourite of Jahangir. “I have always considered it my duty to give him much patronage,” wrote the Emperor in his own autobiography, the Jahangirnama, “and from his youth until now I have patronised him so that his work has reached the level it has.”
The oldest surviving sculptures of the Buddha in Southeast Asia. Found at Oc Eo, now on the Vietnamese side of the Mekong Delta, and the presumed site of one the very first Indic-influenced courts in the region, known to the Chinese as Funan.
The Chinese called this city state Funan – the Indians, Vyadhapura. We do not know what it was called by its own inhabitants. A Chinese court envoy who came to Funan in the third century ce left the first eyewitness portrait of this nascent trading world. ‘This place is famous for precious rarities from afar,’ wrote the Chinese Xue Zong in the third century ce: ‘pearls, incense, elephant tusks, rhinoceros’ horn, tortoise shell, coral, lapis lazuli, parrots, kingfishers, peacocks, rare and abundant treasures enough to satisfy all desires.’
To 21stC eyes, the tall waterlogged wooden Buddhas found at the site are astonishingly beautiful- like Giacometti's Walking Man, and even more than that, the Etruscan bronze know as The Shadow of the Evening which inspired some of his best work
To close 2024 @tweeter_anita & I look at the chaotic first attempts of the English crown to open diplomatic relations with Mughal India
THE ROOTS OF THE RAJ-
Sir Thomas Roe at the Court of Jahangir
The East India Company realised that if it was to trade successfully with the Mughals, it would need both partners and permissions. This meant establishing a relationship with the Mughal Emperor himself.
The man chosen was a courtier, MP, diplomat, Amazon explorer, Ambassador to the Sublime Porte and self-described ‘man of quality’, Sir Thomas Roe.