131. Buddhism Goes to China
Buddhism reached China in the 1st century AD, yet it remained a minor, foreign religion for the next 100 years. It was not until the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 AD and the cracking of the classical...
14 Mars 202436min
130. India meets Rome: Making the Image of the Buddha
In the 1st century AD, the nomadic Kushans settled in what is now Afghanistan and established settlements and trade. From here, they moved down over the Hindu Kush and took large sections of Northern ...
12 Mars 202446min
129. Ashoka: The Great Buddhist Emperor of India
Ruling in the 3rd century BC, Ashoka was one of India’s greatest ever rulers. Under his rule, the Mauryan Empire grew into the largest empire India had ever seen. Its capital, Pataliputra was a dazzli...
7 Mars 202450min
128. The Life of the Buddha
India was the forgotten heart of the ancient world. For a millennium and a half, from about 250 BC to 1200 AD, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilisation, creating around it a vast emp...
5 Mars 202455min
127. Inventing Curry: The British Taste for India
From the beginning of the Raj, British tastes began to turn away from Indian cuisine towards a European palate. The colonial classes sneered at Indian food, instead seeing French food as the height of...
29 Feb 202442min
126. Punch & Chilli: The East India Company at the Table
When the East India Company first arrived on the shores of India, the food they ate in their first factories was not so different from that of Britain. It was all stews, heavy with butter and stuffed ...
27 Feb 202451min
125. The Origin of the Houthis
Since November 2023, the Houthis have been attacking international shipping lanes in the Red Sea. They set off from the Yemeni coastline on speedboats, armed with guns and unmanned drones, often suppl...
22 Feb 202456min
124. Saddam Hussein vs The Ayatollah
In September 1980, Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces invaded neighbouring Iran and so began the longest conventional war in modern history. After initial Iraqi successes, a brutal stalemate set in that wa...
20 Feb 202451min
