Ancient history
THERE are some things that are nearly impossible to imagine. Once, at a museum, I had the opportunity to hold in my hand a prehistoric stone tool. Rendered smooth, likely…
Buried and forgotten history
FOR the longest time, archaeologists forever in search of lost civilisations used to walk the earth, and map and dig areas where they believed ancient settlements had once existed and…
Teaching history
“ONE reason so many adults become fanatics is that, as children, they are taught a history distorted by parochial obsession.” This is not an observation made by our Prof K.K.…
History of taxation: a perspective
Taxes are share of state in income, production and consumption and never liked by individuals or corporate bodies. However, they have very important role in economic development and income redistribution.…
History in folios
LIKE other living organisms, libraries too die. They may survive for 700 years as Oxford’s Bodleian Library has done, but even that venerable institution is succumbing to infirmity. Readers of…
A peek into Sindh’s rare history
The PPP government in Sindh has been severely criticised for its lack of good governance, corruption and a poor state of cleanliness in cities and towns across Sindh. Most of…
Appropriating history
In the 15th century when the movement of the Renaissance emerged in Italy, scholars who were its forerunners were termed humanists. Their main objective was to challenge the domination of…
Europe vs the people without history
European society emerged from the darkness of the Middle Ages and transformed on a fresh basis after the Renaissance and the Reformation, which revitalised it with new concepts. These movements…
A people’s history
The process of writing history by reflecting on political, social and economic factors has gone through different stages. In the first phase, it preserved partial elements of the past. Two…
CPEC: lessons from history
How does one get a grip on the proposed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and its associated investments without any hard information except for the hype? In the absence of any…
