From the Ruins of Empire | Jaipur Literature Festival

Video Description

From the Ruins of Empire Pankaj Mishra, Jane Ohlmeyer, Christopher de Bellaigue and Stephen R. Platt in conversation with Anita Anand The legacy of the British Empire reshaped the modern world, leaving a trail of upheaval, resistance, and transformation. Pankaj Mishra, Jane Ohlmeyer, Christopher de Bellaigue, and Stephen R. Platt join Anita Anand to explore how imperial domination fueled intellectual revolutions and political awakenings across Asia and beyond. Together t​hey uncover the​ political and intellectual movements that challenged colonial power, drawing connections between the past and the influence of the empire on global politics, identity, and resistance movements today. Pankaj Mishra is an essayist and novelist, a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, London Review of Books and the New Yorker, and the author of two books of history, From the Ruins of Empire and Age of Anger: A History of the Present. His most recent book is Run and Hide: A Novel. His new book The World After Gaza is being published in February 2025. Jane Ohlmeyer is Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History (1762) at Trinity College Dublin. In 2023, he received an Advanced ERC for VOICES, a project on the lived experiences of women in early modern Ireland. Her latest Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism and the Early Modern World. Christopher de Bellaigue has authored seven books, including The Islamic Enlightenment and The Lion House. A former journalist for India Today, he has covered significant events in the Middle East and South Asia and is an honorary fellow at the University of St Andrews. Stephen R. Platt is an award-winning historian specialising in China and the West, authoring acclaimed books like Imperial Twilight and Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Anita Anand is an award-winning radio and television journalist. She currently presents Any Answers and The Reith Lectures on BBC Radio 4. Anita is also the author of Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, Kohinoor, The History Of The World’s Most Infamous Diamond, and The Patient Assassin, for which she won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History Book of The Year. She is a trustee for The Women’s Prize for Fiction & Non-Fiction , a patron of The Museum of Richmond, and a member of the advisory board of the Oxford Centre for Global History. Anita was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of London in 2024. She presents the internationally acclaimed Empire podcast with William Dalrymple, which has over 40 million downloads to date. Follow us on – Website - https://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/JaipurLitFest/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/JprLitFest Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jaipurlitfest/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/JaipurLitFest #empire #britishempire #jaipurliteraturefestival2025