The Sassoons were one of the great commercial dynasties of the nineteenth century, as eminent as traders as the Rothschilds were as bankers. In this rich and nuanced portrait of the family, Joseph Sassoon uncovers the secrets behind their phenomenal success: how a handful of Jewish refugees exiled from Ottoman Baghdad forged a mercantile juggernaut trading cotton and opium, the role of their vast network of agents, informants and politicians in extending their reach beyond their new home in India, bridging East and West. Through the lives these ambitious figures built for themselves in Bombay, London and Shanghai, the reader is drawn into a captivating world of politics, business, society and empire - for their meteoric rise was facilitated by their ties to the British imperial project, and its waning coincided with their own. Drawing for the first time on the Sassoon family archives, written largely in an obscure Judeo-Arabic script indecipherable to previous historians, The Global Me
Pre-order the beautifully illustrated companion to the Sunday Times bestseller BIG PANDA AND TINY DRAGON 'James has a way to speak to your soul. This book is nothing short of comforting and heartwarming' VEX KING 'While the drawings have the charm of Winnie-the-Pooh, the captions have the depth of ancient proverbs' GUARDIAN 'A beautifully illustrated book which draws on tender moments. Exquisite' DR RANGAN CHATTERJEE Big Panda and Tiny Dragon have inspired readers across the world with their message of kindness, hope and resilience. Join the two beloved friends as they continue on their journey together, overcoming life's obstacles. And although they often find themselves lost, the beautiful sights they stumble upon along the way show us that the wrong path can often lead to the right road, in the end. Writer and artist James Norbury began illustrating the adventures of Big Panda and Tiny Dragon, inspired by Buddhist philosophy and spirituality, t
The Burning of Njál paints a comprehensive picture of Icelandic life in the heroic age through a wide cast of complex characters, and is considered one of Iceland's great stories of tragedy and heroism. The work has two heroes: Gunnar, a brave, guileless youth compared to Sigurd of legend; and Njál, a wise and prudent man bestowed with the gift of prophecy. Both are men of peace, but when blood ties impose inescapable obligations and memories of past injuries can be rekindled, neither Gunnar's goodwill nor Njál's wisdom can save them from their fate. Gunnar's betrothal to Halgairdt with the thief's eyes plants a seed, and a tree of strife will flourish that our heroes are powerless to stop. The Tree of Strife was adapted by David Wade from the 1960 translation by Magnus Magnusson and Herman Pálsson. It is in three parts: - Gunnar Slow to Anger - The Fire Beneath the Rock - The Burning This full-cast dramatisation stars Bernard Hepton as Njál, Struan Rodger as G
A BBC Radio 4 season exploring the history and future of the United Kingdom In this remarkable collection exploring the state of the United Kingdom and the future of its union, five presenters examine the identities, history and struggles of the nations, and ask what keeps them together as a united country. In the first episode, Jonathan Freedland and a team of historians and BBC correspondents take The Long View of the Union of the United Kingdom, at the constitutional, economic and cultural bonds between the nations, particularly after Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, and at three moments in the UK's history when its future was under similar scrutiny. In A Sea Between Us, Andrea Catherwood looks back at the Ireland she left, when the the IRA was still active, the prospect of a united Ireland seemed remote, and unionist parties enjoyed a comfortable majority at the polls. Now, she meets voices from Belfast's unionist community, looks at the Northern Ireland Protocol's pot
The Ottoman Empire had been one of the major facts in European history since the Middle Ages. By 1914 it had been much reduced, but still remained after Russia the largest European state. Stretching from the Adriatic to the Indian Ocean, the Empire was both a great political entity and a religious one, with the Sultan ruling over the Holy Sites and, as Caliph, the successor to Mohammed. Yet the Empire's fateful decision to support Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914, despite its successfully defending itself for much of the war, doomed it to disaster, breaking it up into a series of European colonies and what emerged as an independent Saudi Arabia. Ryan Gingeras's superb new book, published for the centenary of the last Sultan's departure into exile, explains how these epochal events came about and shows how much we still live in the shadow of decisions taken so long ago. Would all of the Empire fall to marauding Allied armies, or could something be saved? In such an ethnic