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Empire: World History

The rise and fall of empires and the events that shaped world history. William Dalrymple and Anita Anand explore the intricate stories of revolutions, imperial wars, and the people who built and lost empires. From the British Empire to the Ottomans to Ancient India, history is shaped by power struggles and territorial conquests. How does it continue to affect the world today? Empire Club: Become a member of the Empire Club to receive early access to miniseries, ad-free listening, early access to

history

All Episodes

43:25

202. Long John Silver: The Truth Behind Treasure Island

Empire: World History ·

2024/11/12

Robert Louis Stevenson, a sickly boy with a vivid imagination, grew up along Scotland’s rugged coast, where tales of shipwrecks and buried gold stirred dreams of pirates and treasure. Out of this coastal world, Stevenson crafted Treasure Island - and with it, Long John Silver, a character who has since come to define the cunning, complex pirate in our imaginations. But what inspired Stevenson’s tale, and how did his own experiences, steeped in adventure and struggle, breathe life into one of

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40:08

201. The Raj at War

Empire: World History ·

2024/11/07

For many years, commemorations of the two World Wars excluded the memorialisation of soldiers from the British Empire. But campaigners have gradually turned the spotlight on their experiences. In the First and Second World War, approximately 3.8 million soldiers from the Indian subcontinent served in the British Army. Indian and British troops often formed friendships that lasted beyond the wars, bonded in their camaraderie and bravery. Yet there was a ceiling for Indian soldiers, they would never

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46:10

200. The East India Company’s Global Manhunt

Empire: World History ·

2024/11/05

After robbing the fleet in a brutal, barbaric fashion, Henry Avery caused a diplomatic incident of global proportions. The Mughals were furious and the East India Company, which at this very moment was trying to make inroads into India, had to go into overdrive to prove that he was not part of the company. As a result, they undertook one of the greatest manhunts ever to try to catch Avery. It crossed the world, going to the Caribbean and eventually to the British Isles, but will they find

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42:34

199. Robbing the World’s Wealthiest Dynasty

Empire: World History ·

2024/10/31

One of the most notable pirates of his day, Henry Avery would go on to make potentially the most lucrative heist ever on the high seas. Originally a navy man, Avery then took the well-trodden path of starting out as a privateer and turning to piracy. Via a mutiny he soon found himself in the Indian Ocean looking to take the biggest prizes - Mughal ships - and in August 1695 the greatest appeared before him. The ships of Aurangzeb himself were heading for the Red Sea, so Avery hoisted his sail and

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42:47

198. The Pirate Trial of the Century

Empire: World History ·

2024/10/29

William Kidd, a respectable Scottish privateer during the late 17th century, tasked with hunting down pirates on the orders of a murky cabal of British aristocrats, but with the crown’s blessing, finds himself and his crew frustrated by the absence of pirates in the waters off Madagascar during October 1696. With mutiny brewing on his ship The Adventure, Kidd - ever mercurial in his willingness to abandon the law - brutally killed one of his crew with a bucket, before attacking an apparently French

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43:06

197. The Pirate Hunter

Empire: World History ·

2024/10/23

Alongside legends like Blackbeard and Calico Jack, William Kidd is one of the most famous pirates to have entered the public consciousness, thanks to Hollywood, sea shanties and literary mythologization. A Scottish sailor and privateer living during the late 17th century, Kidd went from a life of prosperous respectability and high society on Wall Street; hunting down pirates and protecting the trade of the British Empire, to a life spent on the run, pillaging ships as he went. But what was the

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42:15

196. Blackbeard’s Reign of Terror

Empire: World History ·

2024/10/21

“At our first salutation he drank damnation to me and my men who styled cowardly puppies saying he would neither give nor take quarter…”By the end of November 1717 Blackbeard had become one of the most feared pirates of his age. Having declared war upon the British empire in revenge for his imprisoned brethren in Boston, he reigned down violence and destruction upon the eastern seaboard of North America, disrupting trade and causing havoc. By 1718 he had a devastating fleet of some six ships,

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42:04

195. Blackbeard & the Pirates of the Caribbean

Empire: World History ·

2024/10/16

The history of pirates is a thrilling kaleidoscope of adventure, devastation, violence and political intrigue, and never more so than during the 17th and 18th centuries: the golden age of piracy. This saw the rise of some of the most famous pirates of all time, many of them united in the near mythical Pirate Republic at Nassau in the Caribbean. From Calico Jack, the colourful progenitor of the skull and crossbones, to Charles Vane, the pirate king himself who delighted in torturing his captives, and

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41:18

194. Empire of Numbers: Fibonacci and the Birth of...

Empire: World History ·

2024/10/14

When King Alfonso VI of León took Toledo from the Arabs in 1085, the history of western christendom changed forever. Within the city existed a number of texts full of the ideas that we would call Arabic numerals, but that originated in India. From the libraries of Toledo these were translated and spread through Europe. Enter Fibonacci. A genius Italian mathematician, he instantly recognised the advantages of this number system and so wrote Liber Abaci, distilling these ancient ideas into a Latin

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46:01

193. Empire of Numbers: The Indian Origin of Arabic...

Empire: World History ·

2024/10/09

Often called Arabic numerals, the modern number system we use today actually originates in India. Whilst in the west they were using Roman numerals, in India they were using numbers 1-9. Then, the great Brahmagupta in the 7th century made one of the most monumental developments in human history. He invented zero in its modern form. Therefore, these basic rules of mathematics for the first time allowed any number up to infinity to be expressed with just ten distinct symbols: the nine Indian numbers

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41:12

192. Native American Chiefs, the Founding of Canada,...

Empire: World History ·

2024/10/07

From India to Africa, the involvement and influence of Scots in the British Empire has been profound. In both arenas, they rose through the ranks as soldiers, merchants and bureaucrats, to carve out, govern and lead the empire overseas. But what of America? Here too the Scottish presence was enormous. From the Scottish diaspora in the Caribbean, where after Culloden Scots rebels were forced to work or they travelled willingly to become wealthy slavers themselves. In North America and Canada they

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45:14

191. Slave, Slaver, Abolitionist: Three Scots in Africa

Empire: World History ·

2024/10/02

The extraordinary lives of three Scotsmen - John Henderson, Richard Oswald, and David Livingstone - encapsulate the polarities of the Scottish experience in Africa prior to the 20th century. Henderson, formerly a soldier for the Swedes and the Danes in Europe, was captured and enslaved by the Arabs of Zanzibar in the Mediterranean. Before long though, he had won the heart of a princess of Zanzibar, and eloped to Alexandria with her. By contrast, Richard Oswald was a rich and prodigious slaver who

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53:07

190. Rags to Riches: The Scots in India

Empire: World History ·

2024/09/30

In the wake of Culloden, much of Scotland was on its knees. Crippled by defeat and the subsequent backlash of the British government, along with famine and poverty, they were in dire need of new horizons. The nascent British Empire would provide it. The Scottish Highlanders had developed a fearsome reputation during their struggles against the English, and would prove just as indomitable fighting for Britain in India. Yet, in more ways than militarily, India was to become a treasure trove of

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62:56

189. Culloden: Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Last Stand

Empire: World History ·

2024/09/25

Few battles in history have been remembered as powerfully, nor been as mythologised, as Culloden on the 16th of April 1746. Under the leadership of Charles Edward Stuart - Bonnie Prince Charlie, ‘the Young Pretender’ - the Jacobites fight to the death upon Culloden Moor to place their own king on the British throne. Outgunned, outnumbered, the kilted swordsmen and musketeers took on the forces of the Hanoverian George II of England, in what would be the last battle fought on British soil. What would

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53:44

188. Bonnie Prince Charlie: The Young Pretender

Empire: World History ·

2024/09/23

In 1688 the Stuart King James II was ousted from the throne by his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, in what is called the Glorious Revolution. This momentous change would set in motion decades of unrest across the British Isles, as the supporters of James Stuart; his son the ‘Old Pretender’ James, and his flamboyant grandson, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, both exiled in France and Italy, sought to restore them to the throne of Britain. In Scotland especially, the hereditary home of the

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55:12

187. The Birth of Britain

Empire: World History ·

2024/09/18

With the accession of James I and VI in 1603, Scotland was assimilated into the composite monarchy of the United Kingdom. James, an eccentric, insecure and rambling figure, preoccupied with witches, was himself an alien in his new English court. Even at this stage though, it seems unlikely that the two nations would be legally combined under one parliament. But, with Scottish interests abroad constantly embattled by a lack of resources and the exclusionist attitude of its English neighbours; their

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55:25

186. Scotland: A Nation in Crisis

Empire: World History ·

2024/09/16

When charting the rise of Scotland’s global influence, few events have been as tragically remarkable as the Darien Scheme of 1698, which saw woefully unprepared Scottish pioneers attempt to settle and colonise the Isthmus of Panama. Scotland during this period was a country bound to England under one crown, originally that of James I and VI, though still in its own right a sovereign state. However, competitive enmity was developing between the two neighbours over the question of empire and their

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55:20

185. The God Kings of Angkor Wat

Empire: World History ·

2024/09/11

In the 9th century AD, two years after the Holy Roman Empire was established in Western Christendom, another world-shaking empire was rising in the east, more powerful even than that of Charlemagne and far wealthier. Born in what is today Northern Cambodia but long before the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, the mighty Khmer empire dominated most of mainland Southeast Asia, stretching as far north as southern China, and far outsizing the Byzantine empire and its peak. In 802 a mighty warrior king,

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35:17

184. The Buddhist Merlin

Empire: World History ·

2024/09/09

While in the West the legends of King Arthur were being born, a Buddhist tantric magician of immense magical powers - Vajrabodhi - was enshrining himself as the Merlin of first India, and then China. Undeniably one of the most extraordinary characters of the 8th century, Vajrabodhi would play a crucial role in transporting Buddhism to the Chinese court, along with Indian scholarship. After being sent there on an important embassy by his cousin, a mighty Pallava king of Southern India, Vajrabodhi

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50:35

183. The Poet Kings: Taking Hinduism to Southeast Asia

Empire: World History ·

2024/09/04

India’s transformation of the ancient world is indisputable, and tangible evidence of this can be found in the magnificent Hindu and Buddhist temples scattered across the landscapes of South East Asia. But what was the process by which India transported its vast empire of art, culture, architecture, technology, religion and even writing to South East Asia? The story largely derives in the ascent of international trade from India across the Bay of Bengal, to places like Malaysia, Thailand and even

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364 results

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