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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
Dalrymple sets out to illustrate how India exercised soft (and not so soft) power for a millenia-and-a-half - spreading its culture from Vietnam to Greece.
I liked the first 2 parts of this 3 part book. Part 1 covering the period before and slightly after the Common Era. It can broadly be said to cover the period when Buddhism emerged from India and spread Westwards and Northwards. This part ends around Tang Dynasty China. Part 2 covers the period around the first millenium and focuses on the spread of Hindu influence in SE Asia (Cham, Khmer, Thai, Srivijaya, ...). Part 3 covers the medieval period and focuses on the spread of Indian ideas of mathematics Westward through the Abbasid Caliphate and Cordoba.
I liked Parts 1 and 2. Part 3 was a little bit of a stretch. I find the connection that Dalrymple tries to underline of Indian culture and influence spreading through the Barmakhids a little tenuous,
I liked the first 2 parts of this 3 part book. Part 1 covering the period before and slightly after the Common Era. It can broadly be said to cover the period when Buddhism emerged from India and spread Westwards and Northwards. This part ends around Tang Dynasty China. Part 2 covers the period around the first millenium and focuses on the spread of Hindu influence in SE Asia (Cham, Khmer, Thai, Srivijaya, ...). Part 3 covers the medieval period and focuses on the spread of Indian ideas of mathematics Westward through the Abbasid Caliphate and Cordoba.
I liked Parts 1 and 2. Part 3 was a little bit of a stretch. I find the connection that Dalrymple tries to underline of Indian culture and influence spreading through the Barmakhids a little tenuous,
informative
The Golden Road, William Dalrymple
Dalrymple’s newest book presents a compelling thesis. That from several centuries BC until at least the 12th century, the main communication between Asia and the West was via the maritime trade routes established by India. He marshals a huge amount of scattered evidence and information to support this revolutionary idea. The book itself, while substantial, is 30% notes and references, which underlines the thoroughness of his historical research and strengthens his argument. He shows convincingly that India was Rome’s most important trading partner-for spices, luxury goods, silk etc, accounting for as much as 30% of the Empire's customs revenue! As such it financed much of the Empire's infrastructure. India did this without conquest or war, but by the export of ideas and goods through trade. Dalrymple casts doubt on the idea of the Silk Road, which he shows is the fantasy of a late 19th century German historian, with little evidence for its actual existence during the period covered by this book.
India not only exported goods, but also ideas. The first was Buddhism, and with such success that the largest religious monument in the world-Angkor Wat, dwarfs the Vatican fourfold. It was refreshing to read about T’ang Dynasty Empress Wu Zetian, who made Buddhism one of China’s three state religions in the 7th century. In fact, as I look at so-called historical pages on social media I am appalled by how phallocentric they are. Roman Empire pages for example, contain nothing but praise of war, gladiators, etc. Run by guys, these pages just post guy-stuff. There’s nothing there to interest women or anyone else, though undoubtedly there was at the time and still is. Dalrymple’s book was so refreshing by contrast! It presents history through the lens of trade and ideas, not just war and conquest.
The final 3 chapters cover the invention of the numerical and calculation systems we use today. They, with the concept of zero and its use as a number, which underlies them, were developed in India, though they are called “Arabic numerals” since they were exported first to the Arab world and thence to Europe. They enabled complex mathematics and are in effect a universal language. This system was finally introduced in a practical form in Italy by the mathematician Fibonacci, with the sponsorship of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, aka the “Stupor Mundi” (The Wonder of the World), a title which he richly deserved and one of my favorite characters in history! There are many detailed reviews online. I can only say that as an Indian, it was really refreshing to finally see the great civilization of India given its due. I recommend The Golden Road highly-the book’s thesis will result in much discussion and an overhaul of the way we view this ancient world.
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
informative
Book 3 of 2025!
'The Golden Road - How Ancient India Transformed the World' by William Dalrymple
This book stands as one of the finest analyses of India's remarkable influence on the world. It's an eye-opener that challenges many false narratives.
I can't help but wish for this book to be adapted into an extensive semi-documentary series, with Mr. Dalrymple himself guiding us through it.
This work is a product of meticulous research, demanding thorough rereading and a diligent examination of notes and references. It's perfect for anyone with even a remote interest in history.
Mr. Dalrymple convincingly chronicles how so much originated in the subcontinent and spread across the globe. He traces the birth and spread of religions throughout the Indosphere, illustrating how ancient India was revered as a mystical fountainhead of knowledge and cultural sophistication. The book leaves us contemplating whether India can once again become the guiding light of knowledge for the 21st-century world.
@williamdalrymple Thank you sir!
'The Golden Road - How Ancient India Transformed the World' by William Dalrymple
This book stands as one of the finest analyses of India's remarkable influence on the world. It's an eye-opener that challenges many false narratives.
I can't help but wish for this book to be adapted into an extensive semi-documentary series, with Mr. Dalrymple himself guiding us through it.
This work is a product of meticulous research, demanding thorough rereading and a diligent examination of notes and references. It's perfect for anyone with even a remote interest in history.
Mr. Dalrymple convincingly chronicles how so much originated in the subcontinent and spread across the globe. He traces the birth and spread of religions throughout the Indosphere, illustrating how ancient India was revered as a mystical fountainhead of knowledge and cultural sophistication. The book leaves us contemplating whether India can once again become the guiding light of knowledge for the 21st-century world.
@williamdalrymple Thank you sir!
Supported a ton of sources to back up the narrative, The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple that falls under the category of popular history is a wonderful read for anyone who likes to see people in history come alive.
The ten chapters that constitute this book — apart from an equally lengthy Notes with references—handle thousand years of history; from the Classical Period (3rd cent. BCE) to the end of the Early Medieval Period (13th cent. CE) with a geographical canvas that spreads from Tunisia in the west to Chang’an (Xian) in the east.
If you have ever felt that history is a dry boring subject, this book is for you. William Dalrymple weaves historical figures that most of us would have seen in our history textbooks; like Xuanzong who among a lot of other things wrote a travelogue of his journey to India in the 7th cent. CE, Wu Zetian, the first and only woman emperor of China, Al-Khwarizmi, whose textbook written in the 9th cent. CE, the latin translation of which introduced the decimal-based positional numeral system in Europe, the Barmakids, originally Buddhist heads of the Navavihāra from Afghanistan in the 7th and 8th century.
If you have every felt that history is a dry classification of time into various periods, this books is for you. Dalrymple weaves the thread of ego, violence, imagination and intellect of humans, starting from the interaction between Alexander’s Macedonia and Mauryans in the 3rd cent. BCE; the Kushans in the 2nd and 3rd cent. with their winter capital in Kabul and the summer capital in present-day Patna; down south the Pallavas, the city of Mamallapuram and their trade with south-east asia in the 7th/8th century, the south-east asian hydraulic empire of the Khmers beginning in the late 8th century.
Dalrymple’s main argument is that the the knowledge that took birth in the Indian subcontinent later spread throughout the world, through the work of individuals such as Xuanzong and families like the Barmakids; with the patronage of empires such as Pallavas in the south, Mauryans and Kushans in the north, Khmer in the east and the Abbasid caliphate in the west.
This according to him is the Golden Road. Dalrymple uses the term Indosphere-as opposed to the Sinosphere-, a term originally used by linguists, to show the influence of ideas that were born in the Indian subcontinent in the rest of the world.
Founded by a Ukranian immigrant in 2009, WhatsApp became the world’s most popular instant messaging app by 2015. As a thirty-year old teacher, little did I know that the middle-aged uncles and aunties would hitch a ride on this and start consuming and spreading disinformation about the glorious past of India and how everything is in shambles because of the ancestors of a set of people they have been bigoted against.
Dalrymple’s book seems like a clarion call to these uncles and aunties to look at history and be proud of the syncretic nature of civilizations and ideas; that conquests, empires and kingdoms need to be understood in a much more complexed manner rather than as mere enemies pitted against each other.
As I write this, the sections of newspapers and YouTube channels that I devour are filled with articles regarding the excavations in an obscure village in present-day Tamil Nadu called Sivagalai in Thoothukudi where dozens of iron samples that date back to the 4th millenium BCE are soon going to rewrite the sections of the history textbooks that dealt with the iron age, earlier thought to have started in the 1st millenium.
I am a big fan of popular history, especially books like this one where half of the book is dedicated to providing references for the works cited.
The ten chapters that constitute this book — apart from an equally lengthy Notes with references—handle thousand years of history; from the Classical Period (3rd cent. BCE) to the end of the Early Medieval Period (13th cent. CE) with a geographical canvas that spreads from Tunisia in the west to Chang’an (Xian) in the east.
If you have ever felt that history is a dry boring subject, this book is for you. William Dalrymple weaves historical figures that most of us would have seen in our history textbooks; like Xuanzong who among a lot of other things wrote a travelogue of his journey to India in the 7th cent. CE, Wu Zetian, the first and only woman emperor of China, Al-Khwarizmi, whose textbook written in the 9th cent. CE, the latin translation of which introduced the decimal-based positional numeral system in Europe, the Barmakids, originally Buddhist heads of the Navavihāra from Afghanistan in the 7th and 8th century.
If you have every felt that history is a dry classification of time into various periods, this books is for you. Dalrymple weaves the thread of ego, violence, imagination and intellect of humans, starting from the interaction between Alexander’s Macedonia and Mauryans in the 3rd cent. BCE; the Kushans in the 2nd and 3rd cent. with their winter capital in Kabul and the summer capital in present-day Patna; down south the Pallavas, the city of Mamallapuram and their trade with south-east asia in the 7th/8th century, the south-east asian hydraulic empire of the Khmers beginning in the late 8th century.
Dalrymple’s main argument is that the the knowledge that took birth in the Indian subcontinent later spread throughout the world, through the work of individuals such as Xuanzong and families like the Barmakids; with the patronage of empires such as Pallavas in the south, Mauryans and Kushans in the north, Khmer in the east and the Abbasid caliphate in the west.
This according to him is the Golden Road. Dalrymple uses the term Indosphere-as opposed to the Sinosphere-, a term originally used by linguists, to show the influence of ideas that were born in the Indian subcontinent in the rest of the world.
Founded by a Ukranian immigrant in 2009, WhatsApp became the world’s most popular instant messaging app by 2015. As a thirty-year old teacher, little did I know that the middle-aged uncles and aunties would hitch a ride on this and start consuming and spreading disinformation about the glorious past of India and how everything is in shambles because of the ancestors of a set of people they have been bigoted against.
Dalrymple’s book seems like a clarion call to these uncles and aunties to look at history and be proud of the syncretic nature of civilizations and ideas; that conquests, empires and kingdoms need to be understood in a much more complexed manner rather than as mere enemies pitted against each other.
As I write this, the sections of newspapers and YouTube channels that I devour are filled with articles regarding the excavations in an obscure village in present-day Tamil Nadu called Sivagalai in Thoothukudi where dozens of iron samples that date back to the 4th millenium BCE are soon going to rewrite the sections of the history textbooks that dealt with the iron age, earlier thought to have started in the 1st millenium.
I am a big fan of popular history, especially books like this one where half of the book is dedicated to providing references for the works cited.
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Was lucky enough to be invited to hear Dalrymple talk about the book in a gathering in KL. He was fascinating and completely transported the audience with his research, enthusiasm and wit. He has a very special ability to build bridges between past and present. All this is just as true of the book, and I greatly enjoyed the audiobook which the author reads.
I learned so much - had no idea about the influence of India on the ancient world and especially South-East Asia. Many of my preconceptions were overturned. Not sure how much of the detail my head has managed to retain so am sure will be picking this book again soon.
I learned so much - had no idea about the influence of India on the ancient world and especially South-East Asia. Many of my preconceptions were overturned. Not sure how much of the detail my head has managed to retain so am sure will be picking this book again soon.
adventurous
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
informative