The ‘East’ has held a special place in the British cultural imagination. But how can we chart this historically? And how useful are frameworks of ‘East’ and ‘West’ within a modern world connected by technology?
I’m Robert Taylor, a first-year History DPhil student at New College, researching the post-1945 British counterculture’s interest in India. Today I’m joined by Dr Christopher Harding, who completed his BA, MSt and DPhil at Oxford, and is now a Senior Lecturer in Asian History at the University of Edinburgh. We will be discussing Chris’ excellent recent book The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East. You can follow his substack here (https://www.historywithchrisharding.com/), and find out more about Robert's research as it progresses here (https://history.web.ox.ac.uk/people/robert-taylor).

Host: Robert Taylor

Producer: Florence Allen

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