From the icy oceans of our poles to remote coral islands, Sir David Attenborough has filmed in every ocean habitat on planet earth. In fact, he is known to be (probably one of the rare few) who has been engaged with all kinds of audio-visual technology, across formats, from the time television was launched till date (2025). In his centenary year, with long-term collaborator Colin Butfield, he shares the story of our last great, critical wilderness, and the one which shapes the land we live on, regulates our climate and creates the air we breathe.
Through one hundred years, eight unique ocean habitats, countless intriguing species – and through personal stories, history and cutting-edge science — Ocean uncovers the mystery, the wonder and the frailty of the most unexplored habitat on our planet. And it shows its remarkable resilience: it is the part of our world that can, and in some cases has, recovered the fastest, and in our lifetimes we could see a fully restored marine world, even richer and more spectacular than we could possibly hope, if we act now.
Ocean: Earth’s Last Wilderness (published by Hachette India) is the book accompanying the last film that Sir Attenborough will ever make. In India it was released on 8 May 2025 by Jio Hotstar. We are honoured that Sir Attenborough gave us permission to publish this book extract on Moneycontrol. It is from the opening chapter wherein he ruminates about the discoveries in the oceans that have been noticed and documented by humans. The vast advancements in technology have helped tremendously. Whether it is the ability to scan the depths of the ocean and map the ocean bed to relying upon satellite imagery to spot sea mounts.
In this chapter, Sir Attenborough uses the lifetime of a blue whale – some ninety years — as a handy benchmark to mark the timeline of modern ocean discovery. Apparently, blue whales have been recorded in all the ocean basins; only the frozen parts of the Arctic and Southern Ocean were out of their reach, something that he is convinced will surely change over the coming years as whale numbers recover and the sea ice retreats. Ocean is a fascinating film and an equally fascinating book. For once, the print product accompanying a film is perfect.
It is a book almost a century in the making, but one that has never been more urgently needed.
Sir David Attenborough is a broadcaster and naturalist whose television career is now in its seventh decade. After studying Natural Sciences at Cambridge and a brief stint in publishing, he joined the BBC in 1952 and spent ten years making documentary programmes of all kinds, including the Zoo Quest series. In 1965, he was appointed Controller of a new network, BBC2, and then, after four years became editorially responsible for both BBC1 and BBC2.
After eight years of administration, he returned to programme-making to write and present a thirteen-part series, Life on Earth, which surveyed the evolutionary history of animals and plants. This was followed by many other series which, between them, surveyed almost every aspect of life on earth.
Colin Butfield is co-founder of Studio Silverback, Executive Producer of the WWF’s Our Planet project and an advisor for the Earthshot Prize.
Sensible advice in this book that is more like a manual. Although, given the speed age that we live in, would there be many takers for this book? Everyone is in a tearing hurry to make PPTs and pitch their ideas, but how many are prepared to read/listen to others giving good tips to improve their technique? I certainly hope that they will pay heed to Danny Fontaine.
Danny Fontaine coaches teams and pitches multi-million-dollar deals to the biggest brands in the world. His unique approach blends creativity, psychology, storytelling and immersive experiences, based on years of research and application.
Danny also hosts the Pitch Masters podcast where he interviews the masters of the advertising, sales and marketing industries to find out how they win business.
He has taught photography, done voice-over work, been the lead singer in a band, earned a Fine Art degree, and done many other seemingly irrelevant things that fuel his creative work in surprising ways. Pitch is his first book. He lives in Colchester with his wife and three sons.
Here are some of the reviews posted on Amazon:
An instant classic. From the opening story of the legendary ABM pitch for British Rail through step-by-step instructions on how to organise, craft and deliver an effective pitch, Danny has created an indispensable guide for any individual or organisation that needs to up its pitch game. Highly recommended — Peter Coughter, author of The Art of the Pitch
In a world of digital tricks and games Danny’s book brings a refreshing focus on the fundamentals of how to win. His principles and stories are timeless. Read it. Live it. Enjoy the Reward. — Doug Hall, founder of Eureka! Ranch
You can’t convince anyone of anything without a good story. Danny has masterfully captured that connection in this concise and practical book. Pick this book up and land your next pitch like a pro — Jeff Gothelf, author ― Lean UX
When I finished Pitch, my first thought was: how much would it cost to hire him? This is the go-to compendium of pitching -as an ex-sales trainer, I found things I’d never considered. It’s light-hearted and packed with incredible stories and tools. Seriously impressive — Thomas Erikson, author of Surrounded by Idiots
If you want to beat the competition then this is the most thorough and engaging pitch book that I’ve had the pleasure to read. It covers everything from A to Z – and beyond – and will become an indispensable guide on not just pitching but how to prepare for and present yourself in any situation when your persuasive power is paramount — Graham Thomas, former CEO and President of Saatchi & Saatchi
Almost every great business is the product of two great ideas. A great idea, and another great idea about how to sell the first idea. It pains me to think how many wonderful innovations and great businesses we may have lost because they never cleared the second hurdle. If only they had read this wonderful book — Rory Sutherland, author of Alchemy
In a world saturated with uninspired pitches and tedious presentations, Pitch emerges as a beacon of hope for anyone yearning to transform their communication into a powerful, emotional experience. Fontaine artfully weaves together the science of psychology, the magic of storytelling and practical strategies that can elevate any speaker’s game … This book is not just a guide; it’s a revolution in the art of pitching — Robin Dreeke, author of It’s Not All About Me
Danny Fontaine has masterfully laid out the essentials for the perfect pitch. Whether you’re a nervous newbie or seasoned pro, there are lessons to be learned on every single page — M. A. Batten, award-winning writer
Time to give away any other books you have on pitching – and on presenting, storytelling and creativity while you’re at it. Pitch has it all – case studies, research and brilliant advice that anyone can follow. Danny’s wide experience and personal insights prove that it’s possible to find power beyond Powerpoint — Neil Mullarkey, author of In The Moment
Danny is the modern authority on the art of the pitch — Adam Morgan, former Adobe Executive Creative Director and author of Sorry Spock, Emotions Drive Business
Fontaine distills the art of persuasion into a practical, battle-tested framework that anyone can apply – whether you’re leading a team, selling an idea, or standing in front of a boardroom full of skeptics. A must-read for leaders, entrepreneurs, and anyone serious about influence – literally everybody needs to read this book — Ben Williams, founder and CEO of Loopin and author of Commando Mindset
Everyone has to pitch at some point – whether it’s landing a job, leading a team, or winning a deal. Pitch gives you the playbook to create unforgettable moments that captivate, inspire, and win. — Jim Highsmith, co-author of the Agile Manifesto
This book has become my pitching bible and is seriously in a league of its own. It doesn’t just help in winning business, it helps you win people over in every aspect of life. Whether you’re closing deals, or making your ideas heard at work, if you want to be more persuasive, make your words more impactful, and ultimately be more successful in any area of your life, please read this book. Then read it again…! — Carl Hewitt, co-founder and CEO of Hewitt Matthews
Danny’s ability to tap into what truly makes us human-and yes, that includes engineers-offers a fresh, powerful approach to pitching that can transform not just how we do business, but how we connect and inspire action in every aspect of life — Hilary Salzman, author of The Roar of Her Story
If pitching is a game, this book is the cheat code — Tommy Schaff, Cialdini Method Certified Trainer
Inner Sense: How the New Science of Interoception Can Transform Your Health (published by Profile Books/Hachette India) looks at the intersection of many sciences to understand how humans can improve their health. It does not necessarily focus on those identified as clinically sick for whatever reason. Even able bodied individuals have their moments of anxiety, self-doubt, and possible physical manifestations thereof. It is about knowing oneself better without advocating positive toxicity. Caroline Williams attempts to understand scientifically the underlying reasons for a diverse group of individuals feeling the way they do. Her sample cases are fairly varied. She also advocates trusting one’s gut, following one’s instincts and trusting one’s heart.
On p.78 she makes a valid observation:
The brain’s predictions and interpretations of what’s happening in the body can carry a lot of weight in the equation that adds up to how we feel. So it stands to reason that if we could somehow change what the brain thinks is happening in the body, it mught help to change how energised we feel.
An important aside: I’m not suggesting that anyone with chronic fatigue is able to think themselves better. Research suggests that this condition is usually the result of a physical glitch in the system, not an imagined one, and the same is true of many instances of everyday fatigue.
Later she discusses at length about the importance of gut health and recognising the signals.
p.101ff …gut feelings are so important. If hunger didn’t make us feel bad and eating didn’t feel good, our prehistoric ancestors might have wasted away in a cave rather than risk going out hunting and gathering. If being sick didn’t feel so miserable, we might not learn to avoid bad food, and the next rotten piece of meat could kill us. And if we didn’t know to stop eating when we felt full, we might keep seeking out food at the expense of other important things, such as staying safe and warm and fostering life-enriching relationships.
These relationships are as important for our survival as finding enough calories. Humans are relatively puny compared to our natural predators, and we have long childhoods, during which we are dependent on others for food. It makes sense that at some point in our evolution, the basic motivational feelings for finding food were recycled as motivators that prompted us to seek out social institutions. As a result, we get hungry for food but also for human connection and comfort. We feel sick not just when we’ve eaten something rancid but also when a creepy stranger stands too close to us. And we feel warm and fuzzy inside when eating our favourite meal and when we’re with someone we love. For most of our evolutionary history this system has guided us well. But in a world where comfort food is easier to come by than meaningful human connection and where much of what we eat is tastier than it is filling, it can be a struggle to know what our bodies — and minds — are asking for.
To make things even more complicated, food and comfort aren’t the only things our guts communicate with the brain about. The gut is hardwired into the fight-of-light system, meaning that it also sends out signals that are a side effect of a body-wide call to action. We all know what it feels like when our stomach flips when we are nervous; when we are faced with a life-or-death situation (or a more trivial social encounter that feels like one), digesting our last meal can wait. The blood that would usually be required for digestion is diverted to the muscles and brain, so its share of glucose and oxygen can be used to deal with the emergency. The sensation of a knot deep in your stomach, the fluttering of butterflies or a cold wave as the blood drains from your belly is a direct result of digestion grinding to a halt while the blood is sent elsewhere.
This system also works well — at least, when we need a burst of energy to deal with a cahllenge — but it can easily get out of whack in the stressful modern world. The link between emotional issues and digestive problems that has long proven difficult to explain is becoming increasingly clear — and even harder to treat in a medical system that thinks of conditions as being either physical or ‘all in the mind’.
All things considered, the overlap between our gut feelings and emotional state means taht trusting your gut is not always as straightforward as it might be.
p.111ff It is often said that the gut has a ‘second brain’ that operates semi-independently from the brain in our heads. The enteric nervous system is embedded in the gut walls along most of the gut, and contains more neurons than the spinal cord. It’s reputation as a second brain comes from the fact that it can manage the complex process of digestion without any input from the actual brain, regulating the contractions that push food through the gut and the hormones involved in the digestion.
While the enteric nervous sytem can do a lot without the say-so of the brain, they are not totally disconnected. Over the past decade, it has become clear that the insides of the gut not only talk among themselves via the enteric nervous system, but are also in constant contact with the brain, via the vagus and spinal sensory nerves. These lightning-fast connections mean that the brain hears what’s happening in the gut in miliseconds. It also means that whatever is happening in the brain affects the gut just as quickly. This is the much-talked-about gut-brain acix, which is proving to be a new frontier in understanding what makes us tick — and what makes us sick.
This is a fascinating book. It goes into a fair amount of biochemical details about how these systems are interconnected inside us. Also, sharing new scientific discoveries or rather finding scientific evidence for statements (as mentioned above) that people have made for a long time and discovering the truth.
Perhaps this book is for you, if you are an eclectic reader, perhaps it is for you, if you are a specialist interested, but it is definitely for you if you are charmed by Ozempic and Wegovy.
Andrew Miller’s first novel, Ingenious Pain, was published by Sceptre in 1997. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Grinzane Cavour Prize for the best foreign novel published in Italy. It has been followed by Casanova, Oxygen, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award in 2001, The Optimists, One Morning Like a Bird, Pure, which won the Costa Book of the Year Award in 2011, The Crossing, Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, The Slowworm’s Song and The Land in Winter, which won the Winston Graham Historical Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in 2025. Andrew Miller’s novels have been published in translation in twenty countries. Born in Bristol in 1960, he currently lives in Somerset.
The Land in Winter is a fabulous historical novel set in the extraordinary winter of 1962. The snowfall/blizzard began on Boxing Day 1962 and continued till March 1963. It was an unusual time where people were caught unawares, trapped indoors, with few rations. After a few days, even if the snow ploughs had helped clear roads, people were unsure if the grocery stores would be stocked. Supplies were erratic.
This novel centres around two young couples — Dr Eric and Irene Parry and Bill and Reeta Simmons. They are neighbours and outsiders to the village. Dr Parry is a GP and Bill Simmons is trying his hand at farming. Both the young wives are pregnant. The Land in Winter is about the lives of these four individuals, their intersections as well as their relationship with the other villagers in the local community.
There is a slow and deliberate build up to the story. But once the snow fall begins, the chapters are shorter, with the people trapped indoors and learning to live with each other. Given that the opening pages highlight some of the differences that were creeping into their marital relationships, the blizzard had proven to be (initially) a good thing. Over time, there are revelations that put their plans for a stable and content future as a young family asunder.
Andrew Miller specialises in historical fiction. Always has written in this genre. Ever since he chose writing as his profession at the age of eighteen. He has been fortunate to have won innumerable prestigious prizes. His research and eye for historical details to make the novel sound authentic in terms of the period it is set in, is meticulous. It is rewarding for the reader as it makes for a rich narrative. He makes multiple drafts and rewrites his texts, or portions thereof, as many times as is required. As a result, the sentences that he writes are exquisite. At times, even if the reworking has not improved the text, he discards it. Tough but essential. It is illuminating, liberating and rewarding because the text becomes clearer. It is a hard task to undertake and never gets any easier with every book that he writes but it helps get closer and closer to the truth he seeks in every story. There is immense variety in the kind of historical fiction that he writes.
Frankly, the two literary prizes that this book has collected so far in 2025 are well worth it!
Read The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller. It is published by Sceptre/ Hachette India.
The first memoir by an indigenous tribal leader in the Amazon, who fought Big Oil to preserve her tribe’s territories, and thousands of acres of pristine rainforest.
”I’m here to tell you my story, which is also the story of my people and the story of this forest.”
Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador”s Amazon rainforest, Nemonte Nenquimo was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. Age 14, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture.
She listened.
Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in climate-change activism. She has spearheaded the alliance of indigenous nations across the Upper Amazon and led her people to a landmark victory against Big Oil, protecting over a half million acres of primary rainforest. Her message is as sharp as the spears that her ancestors wielded – honed by her experiences battling loggers, miners, oil companies and missionaries.
In this astonishing memoir, she partners with her husband Mitch Anderson, founder of Amazon Frontlines, digging into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, hacking away at racist notions of Indigenous peoples, and ultimately revealing a life story as rich, harsh and vital as the Amazon rainforest herself.
”An unforgettable memoir about fighting for your home and your heart.” – Reese Witherspoon (Reese”s Book Club November ”24 Pick)
If you want to understand the climate crisis and do something about it, read this book. Nemonte’s writing is as provocative as it is inspiring, a heroine speaking her truth which is exactly what we need to hear. Had we listened long ago to these voices we wouldn’t be in the eye of the storm now. – Emma Thompson, Actor and Writer
Nemonte Nenquimo, a Waorani leader, was born in Ecuador’s Amazon, one of the most bio-diverse and threatened rainforests on the planet. She is the co-founder of both the Indigenous-led non-profit Ceibo Alliance and its partner organization, Amazon Frontlines. Nemonte led her people in an historic legal victory against the oil industry, protecting half-a-million acres of rainforest and setting a precedent for Indigenous rights across the region. Her leadership has been widely recognized; in 2020, she won the Goldman Environmental Prize for Central and South America and was named to the BBC 100 Women and TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World.
Mitch Anderson is co-founder and Executive Director of Amazon Frontlines, a non-profit organization based in the Upper Amazon, which defends indigenous peoples’ rights to land, life, and cultural survival. In 2011, he moved to Ecuador’s northern Amazon to start a grassroots clean water project with Indigenous communities living downriver from contaminating oil operations. Through building more than 1,000 clean water systems in over 70 villages, Mitch supported the formation of the Ceibo Alliance, an Indigenous-led non-profit that won the prestigious UN Equator Prize and whose victories for the Amazon rainforest have inspired millions worldwide.
Despite being 1,500 years old, chess has never been more relevant than it is today. The Chess Revolution explores chess as a cultural phenomenon from its biggest stars and most dramatic moments to the impact of the internet and AI.
Chess, as it turns out, isn’t just one of the greatest games ever devised. It has inspired writers, painters and filmmakers, and was a secret mover behind technical revolutions like artificial intelligence that are transforming society. In The Chess Revolution the acclaimed Chess.com journalist Peter Doggers reveals how computers and the Internet have further strengthened the timeless magic of chess in the digital era, leading to a new peak in popularity and cultural relevance.
Chess is a staggering invention, if indeed it was invented. Maybe it just evolved. It is still evolving, now faster than ever, and Peter Doggers has traced and tracked its never-ending development with wit, vigour and insight. Nothing artificial about his intelligence — Sir Tim Rice
Peter Doggers has been covering the chess world as a journalist for almost 20 years, and no one knows more about its culture and controversies than him. Now he has undertaken a fascinating and synoptic survey that looks at the game’s glorious past and what he hopes could be an even more storied future. Thanks to the internet, more people are playing and following the game than ever before, Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit has triggered a new wave of popular interest, and computers and AI – far from killing the game, as many anticipated – have helped to remake it. Doggers argues forcefully that chess, for so long in danger of being marginalised after the high point of the great Fischer-Spassky world championship match in 1972, is returning to the mainstream and can be a winner again — Stephen Moss, author of The Rookie: An Odyssey Through Chess (and Life)
The game of chess deserves this book — Tex de Wit, comedian, TV personality and chess player
Doggers is an excellent guide . . . The Chess Revolution provides an entertaining and instructive overview of a game in the throes of reinvention. A decade ago, it would have been quite possible to view chess as a fading sport, as its mysteries were solved by computers and its audiences tempted away by video games and other less taxing entertainments. Instead, by embracing a heady mix of technology and globalisation, it has been re-energised – providing a lesson for other human intellectual pursuits far beyond the sixty-four squares — James Crabtree, Financial Times
Peter Doggers is one of the most well-known and respected journalists in the chess world. An internationally ranked chess player, he is the Director of news and events at the market leader in online chess, Chess.com. Doggers has played chess for more than 35 years and has covered it for more than 18. He has interviewed dozens of grandmasters, played basketball with Magnus Carlsen, and interviewed Garry Kasparov at Bobby Fischer‘s grave. Doggers lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
I read this book in one sitting. At times, it does get a little challenging to remember the names that are from the past, but after a while, even that is no longer an impediment to reading this marvellous book. Moudhy Al-Rashid falls in love with cuneiform by sheer accident. She is on her way to becoming a lawyer but one fine day, whiling away her time in London, she enrolls in an intensive course called “The Book in the Ancient World”. It changed her life. The British Museum tutor, Irving Finkel, showed his students artefacts from Mesopotamia and talked about their historical significance. To an untrained eye, like Moudhy Al-Rashid’s at the time, these artefacts looked like lumps of clay but as Finkel spoke, it became clear that clay tablets contained neat cuneiform writing from a different millennia. They had been dug up by Hormuzd Rassam, the Mosul-born archaeologist in 1881.
In Between Two Rivers, historian Moudhy Al-Rashid analyses prominent artefacts with cuneiform found in Mesopotamia. It is a fascinating set of essays. The last one is on the women mentioned especially Enheduanna.
Here is the book blurb for Between Two Rivers. It is published by Hodder and Stoughton/ Hachette India:
Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.
What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi. But they also capture breathtakingly intimate, raw and relatable moments, like a dog’s paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, or the imprint of a child’s teeth.
In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives, allowing us to brush hands with them millennia later. We find a lullaby to soothe a baby, instructions for exorcising a ghost, countless receipts for beer, and the adorable, messy writing of preschoolers. We meet an enslaved person negotiating their freedom, an astronomer tracing the movement of the planets, a princess who may have created the world’s first museum, and a working mother struggling with ‘the juggle’ in 1900 BCE.
Together, these fragments illuminate not just the history of Mesopotamia, but the story of how history was made.
I have never read a book on Mesopotamia that so beautifully brings to life the people themselves. There are beautiful descriptions of what it is to be pregnant, to give birth, to have small children, to love a dog. I love the way in which she’s not just writing about priests or kings, but is giving us a clay tablet on which a little child has bitten, so you have the imprint of his teeth. It melts away the sense of time. A wonderful read. — TOM HOLLAND
An ode to the power of history. It builds a persuasive case for history writing as a particularly human impulse, and for how lives of people living thousands of years ago can reflect and shape our modern lives in unexpected ways … Al-Rashid punctuates her prose with personal recollections and humour, as well as touching reflections on her experience of motherhood. She is our companion, tour guide and teacher … a plethora of fun historical facts … To write a book like this one, the author needs to have both mastery over the subject material and an engaging style of communication. Al-Rashid excels in both areas. For general audiences, Between Two Rivers is a fascinating, balanced introduction to this complex – and at times elusive – ancient world. ― The Conversation
This book is an extraordinary invitation to the magical land of Mesopotamia, written like your best friend is sitting with you next to a cozy fire with a warm drink, spinning mesmerizing tales of the fascinating land which birthed our modern world. It is a stunning debut effort, written by both a wonderful scholar and talented social media communicator. — PROFESSOR SARAH PARCAK
Fascinating and magnificent, beautifully written and explained: this book is a masterpiece. — GEORGE MONBIOT, author of Feral and The Invisible Doctrine
A marvellous book, which not only brims with humanity but offers fascinating and often funny insights into everyday life in this crucial era of world history. Fart jokes to exam stress, motherhood and tax evasion: you’ll find something here that reminds you that this ancient history is not as remote as you might think. Al Rashid describes her job of reading ancient Mesopotamian texts as like shaking hands with strangers. — JAMES BARR, author of A Line in the Sand
Her infectious enthusiasm imbues Between Two Rivers, a lively and beguiling history of ancient Mesopotamia … I found myself completely enthralled by an ancient period and civilisation I previously knew very little about. — CAROLINE SANDERSON ― What to Read Now
A lively portrait of this ancient civilisation … Al-Rashid is an engaging and knowledgeable guide … Many of her characters – bored schoolboys, tired parents and squabbling siblings – are extremely relatable … Between Two Rivers provides remarkable insights into ancient lives … even at a distance of nearly four millennia, it is impossible not be moved ― Sunday Times
A highly readable introduction to an era of history that deserves to be better known. — Starred Review ― Kirkus
Wonderfully vivid. ― Literary Review
A tender, moving and vivid history of ancient Mesopotamia and how it still speaks to us. — ROBERT MACFARLANE
Absorbing, learned and witty, Between Two Rivers is far more than an account of ancient Mesopotamia. Al-Rashid offers an ingenious, passionate ‘history of histories’, spinning outwards from relics collected by a royal priestess more than 2,500 years ago. In discovering familiar human joys and sorrows – surviving in times of peace and war, dealing with royal and divine demands, the desperate love for our children – we vividly witness how lives across the millennia are revealed and connected by archaeology and cuneiform. — REBECCA WRAGG SYKES author of Kindred
Ancient Mesopotamia comes alive in Moudhy Al-Rashid’s must-read, millennia-spanning history, cleverly wrought from tablets written in the world’s oldest script … spellbinding … a fresh and very human portrait of the region… Through her clever sifting of the texts, we see how cuneiform … helped to bind these civilisations together across millennia… We also discover, in Al-Rashid’s vivid rendering of the texts, very moving details from the lives of real people in Mesopotamia over the ages … Al-Rashid’s academic background gives her a wonderful confidence as she roves around the literary and archaeological evidence. She is also a gifted storyteller, able to spin a yarn of gold from the very fragmentary sources … This is a delightful book, and a must-read for anyone interested in these civilisations. I hope it serves to shine a larger spotlight on this extraordinary period in humanity’s past. — Emily Wilson ― New Scientist
Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid is a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Wolfson College, where she specialises in the languages and history of ancient Mesopotamia. She completed her B.A. from Columbia University in Philosophy, and after a single day of learning about cuneiform texts at a summer school, decided to pursue the subject with a Master’s degree and eventually a Doctoral degree at the University of Oxford.
She has written for academic and popular journals, including History Today, on topics as diverse as mental illness in ancient Mesopotamia to Late Assyrian scholarly networks. In addition to her writing, she has also appeared on several podcasts, including the BBC Podcasts Making History and You’re Dead to Me. Through her Twitter account, which has over 27,000 followers, she hopes to give ancient Mesopotamia as wide an audience as possible and to humanise its long history. Originally from Saudi Arabia where she grew up, she now lives near Oxford with her family and their four dogs.
‘A compelling, highly readable account of the earliest phase of English presence in India’ NANDINI DAS, author of Courting India
When the first English travellers in India encountered an unimaginable superpower, their meetings would change the world.
Before the East India Company and before the British Empire, England was a pariah state. Seeking better fortunes, 16th and 17th century merchants, pilgrims and outcasts ventured to the kingdom of the mighty Mughals, attempting to sell coarse woollen broadcloth along the silk roads; playing courtiers in the Mughal palaces in pursuit of love; or simply touring the sub-continent in search of an elephant to ride.
Into this golden realm went Father Thomas Stephens, a Catholic fleeing his home; the merchant Ralph Fitch looking for jewels in the markets of Delhi; and John Mildenhall, an adventurer revelling in the highwire politics of the Mughal elite. It was a land ruled from the palatial towers by women – the formidable Empress Nur Jahan Begim, the enterprising Queen Mother Maryam al-Zamani, and the intrepid Princess Jahanara Begim. Their collision of worlds helped connect East and West, launching a tempestuous period of globalisation spanning from the Chinese opium trade to the slave trade in the Americas.
Drawing on rich, original sources, Lubaaba Al-Azami traces the origins of a relationship between two nations – one outsider and one superpower – whose cultures remain inextricably linked to this day.
Dr Lubaaba Al-Azami is a cultural historian and Lecturer in Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at the University of Manchester. Lubaaba is also Founding Editor of Medieval and Early Modern Orients (MEMOs, memorients.com), a transnational digital platform on premodern encounters between England and the Islamic Worlds.
Award-winning writer and academic Viet Thanh Nguyen is a name that many in the literary world are familiar with. As a Vietnamese-American, he is acutely aware of his two identities and the histories he carries within himself. This is one of the recurring themes of his memoir, A Man of Two Faces. He has written plenty of books, most notably his Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2016 The Sympathiser. It was recently turned into a TV series with Park Chan-wook and Robert Downey Jr. His books are published in India by Hachette India.
In 2023-24, Viet Thanh Nguyen delivered the prestigious Norton Lectures. In the lectures as well as in the discussions that follow, he addresses many of the aspects of being an immigrant in the USA that are at the heart of his moving memoir A Man of Two Faces.
We have recorded more than 134 episodes of TOI Bookmark. Each one is special and memorable. Every conversation is unique. It was an honour and a privilege to record this episode with Viet Thanh Nguyen. He is exceptionally busy with a demanding schedule. Yet, once we had figured out a mutually convenient time to record, across time zones, days and dates, he was immensely courteous and gave us his focussed attention. It did not seem as if he had been in back-to-back meetings/interviews during the day. It was Memorial Weekend in the USA, but he was working.
It was a fascinating conversation about reading and writing memoirs while discussing his book A Man of Two Faces. Also, how he had to think through himself, think through the history of his family that he was dealing with, and think through the language he was going to use.
Incidentally, 30 April 2025 marked fifty years since the conclusion of the Vietnam War.
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TOI Bookmark is a weekly podcast on literature and publishing. TOI is an acronym for the Times of India (TOI) which is the world’s largest newspaper and India’s No. 1 digital news platform with over 3 billion page views per month. The TOI website is one of the most visited news sites in the world with 200 million unique monthly visitors and about 1.6 billion monthly page views. TOI is the world’s largest English newspaper with a daily circulation of more than 4 million copies, across many editions, and is read daily by approximately 13.5 million readers. The podcasts are promoted across all TOI platforms. I have recorded more than 134+ sessions with Jnanpith, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shree awardees, International Booker Prize winners, Booker Prize winners, Women’s Prize for Fiction, Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prize, Stella Prize, AutHer Awards, Erasmus Prize, BAFTA, Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction etc. Sometimes the podcast interviews are carried across all editions of the print paper with a QR code embedded in it.
Some of the authors who have been interviewed are: Banu Mushtaq, Deepa Bhashti, Samantha Harvey, Jenny Erpenbeck, Michael Hoffman, Paul Murray, V. V. Ganeshananthan, Hisham Matar, Anita Desai, Amitava Kumar, Hari Kunzro, Venki Ramakishnan, Siddhartha Deb, Elaine Feeney, Manjula Padmanabhan, NYRB Classics editor and founder Edwin Frank, Jonathan Escoffery, Joya Chatterji, Arati Kumar-Rao, Paul Lynch, Dr Kathryn Mannix, Cat Bohannon, Sebastian Barry, Shabnam Minwalla, Paul Harding, Ayobami Adebayo, Pradeep Sebastian, G N Devy, Angela Saini, Manav Kaul, Amitav Ghosh, Damodar Mauzo, Boria Majumdar, Geetanjali Mishra, Viet Thanh Nguyen, William Dalrymple, Abdulrazak Gurnah, and Annie Ernaux.
Hachette India very kindly sent a copy of this book. I cannot wait to read this. It is just the kind of material that I enjoy reading. If only I could finish my other deadlines asap.
‘Thrilling, meticulous and wondrously original’ PHILIPPE SANDS
A jaw-dropping microhistory of the global economy over the last fifty years told through the many lives of a single ship.
At 94 meters long and 9,500 deadweight tonnes, once called the Bibby Resolution, is an unremarkable hulk, crossing the oceans unnoticed. And yet, the astonishing journey of this boat can tell us the story of the modern world.
First built as a Swedish offshore oil rig in the 1970s, it went on to become a barracks for British soldiers in the Falklands War in the 1980s, a jail off New York in the 1990s, a prison in Portland in the 2000s, and accommodation for Nigerian oil workers off the coast of Africa in the 2010s. It has been called Safe Esperia, HMP The Weare, even ‘The Love Boat’. In each of its lives this empty vessel has been commanded by economic forces much larger than itself: private investment, war, mass incarceration, imperial interests, national sovereignty, inflation, booms, busts and greed.
Through its encounters with a world of island tax havens, the English court system, exploited labour forces, free banking zones or immigration politics, the ordinary boat at the heart of this story reveals our complex modern economy to us, connecting the dots of a dramatically changing world in the making, and warning us of its dangerous consequences.
Capitalism. International law. Imperial decline. National sovereignty. Inflation. Sectoral stagnation. Gentrification. Mass incarceration. Booms. Busts. Racism. Greed. Empty Vessel is the story of globalism in one boat. First built as a Swedish offshore oil rig in the 1970s, it went on to house British soldiers in the Falklands War in the 1980s, prisoners from Riker’s Island in New York’s East River in the 1990s, Volkswagen factory employees in Germany in the 2000s, and Nigerian oil workers off the coast of Africa in the 2010s. In each of its lives it arrived as an empty vessel, filled at the behest of both public and private interests, for purposes of war, incarceration, and commerce – connecting people thousands of miles apart, all shaped by the same global economic transformations. So much of our global economy is composed of specific innovations, decisions, and human experiences as concrete as the barnacles scraped off a hull. Through this party boat, prison, oil rig and war vessel. Empty Vessel reveals this economy to us – and warns of its troubling consequences.
In the astonishing trajectory of a humble barge, Empty Vessel delivers an ambitious history of the global economy, linking everything from oil-drilling and offshore finance to military deployments and mass incarceration. I’ve rarely read a book that so deftly entwines a single, accessible story with the broad forces of globalization. A stunningly original history, as phenomenally well-researched as it is eloquently told
— Maya Jasanoff, author of THE DAWN WATCH
Kumekawa’s tale of the Barge . . . is an imaginative and beautifully written allegory of the decades of globalization and the fugitive wealth it supported. What an eye-opening read!
— Charles S. Maier, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History, Emeritus, Harvard University
A captivating story-I read it like a detective novel-and at the same time a profound contribution to the history of economic, financial and material life in the contemporary globalized world — Emma Rothschild, Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History, Harvard University
Kumekawa brilliantly traces the history of one vessel to make the historical forces of globalization concrete. A riveting and important read that shows the strange ties between tax havens and trade, prisons and ports. Offshore is more than a concept; it is a place. Kumekawa is the ideal guide to that place and its complicated inner workings
— Heidi Tworek, Professor of History and Public Policy and Canada Research Chair, University of British Columbia
When the world went on lockdown, Ian Kumekawa took a different tack, tracking a single barge through its journey across the planet. What he discovers is the hidden material life and labor that make the global economy possible. A brilliant, unforgettable tale of our modern times — Eric Klinenberg, author of 2020
An ingenious, marvelous book. Ian Kumekawa has captured the big economic stories of the past half-century in the perambulations of a single ship. His Vessel drifts across the globe from one major upheaval to the next, a floating, steel witness to extraction, mass production, deindustrialization, incarceration, and war. The result is a high seas picaresque through the systems that tie the modern world together — Henry Grabar, author of PAVED PARADISE
A gripping tale-of a floating prison, the worlds of global and offshore capital in which such ships are moored, and the maritime and legal infrastructures that keep such worlds afloat, even amidst the tidal waves of economic and ecological disaster
— Surabhi Ranganathan, Professor of International Law, University of Cambridge
Empty Vessel, both the book and the accommodation container ship whose checkered history it unfolds, brilliantly illuminates the workings of a global offshore economy that would prefer to remain in the shadows, lingering on the margins of the law, thriving on secrecy, sleight of hand and tax avoidance. By following in the vessels’ wake Kumekawa’s riveting story reveals not just its physical use and functions-as accommodation for British troops, New York prisoners, oil workers, asylum seekers-but explains how the Vessel became an exemplary object caught up in global skeins/schemes of capital and finance — John Brewer, Professor Emeritus, Caltech Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
A thrilling, meticulous and wondrously original journey, told with a flair and reverence for detail that captures all the joys, travails and horrors of life across time, place and water. A fabulous book — Philippe Sands, author of EAST WEST STREET
Kumekawa is an excellent guide to this half a century moment in the history of capitalism. By focusing on something small and very local he allows us to see something big and very global: the forgoing of new inequalities, the retooling of global economic hierarchies, the refashioning of trade and industry, the feverish burning of fossil fuels and the violence and coercions embedded into the neoliberal order supervised by a powerful but recast state. The many-headed hydra of neoliberalism has found its chronicler — Sven Beckert, author of EMPIRE OF COTTON
If you’ve ever struggled to understand what terms like “globalisation” or “financialistion” actually mean, Empty Vessel is the book for you. Kumekawa combines in depth research with powerful storytelling to show the reader, in concrete terms, how modern capitalism really works – and how it has changed over the last several decades — Grace Blakeley, author of VULTURE CAPITALISM
A compelling voyage in and of itself, taking the reader on a journey around the global economy that illuminates the systemic blind spots of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century global economy. A trip on a barge that takes you further than you imagined — Kojo Koram, author of UNCOMMON WEALTH
