“As a young man visiting a Sufi shrine in Algeria,” remarks the writer Robert Irwin parenthetically in an otherwise scholarly essay on medieval Arabic literature, “I once encountered a jinni in the form of a cat.” No further elaboration is …
The Asian-American class war
In the metropolises of the West, shops that sell bubble tea — or boba, as it is commonly known — have proliferated over the past few years, a microcosm of the boom in East Asian cultural exports. At the same …
The imperialist who understood India
James Mill’s reputation has fallen on hard times. Few will mark the 250th anniversary of the distinguished historian and colonial administrator’s birth by laying bouquets on his grave. Those who have studied him are more likely to show up today …