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An Empire of Ideas: How Ancient India Transformed the World

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For about a millennium and a half, between 250 BCE and 1200 CE, India was a confident exporter of its own diverse civilizations, creating an empire of ideas, to a world that was a willing and eager recipient of a startlingly comprehensive mass transfer of Indian soft power. From religion such as Buddhism to mathematics that introduced the idea of zero, infinity, algebra, trigonometry to astronomy that proposed a spherical earth rotating on its own axis and trade, that Pliny the Elder complained drained the wealth of Rome into Indian pockets, Indian ideas infected the world. 

In The Golden Road, William Dalrymple, draws on a lifetime of scholarship to give a name to the spread of Indian ideas that transformed the world. From the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire, to the creation of the numerals we use today, Dalrymple shares the soaring history of how India transformed the culture and technology of the ancient world, and in doing so, the world today as we know it.

About the Speaker

William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple CBE, is a noted historian and best-selling author of nine books; the most recent, The Anarchy, was a finalist for the Cundill History Prize and one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2019. He is also one of the co-founders and co-directors of the world's largest writers' festival, the annual Jaipur Literature Festival. Dalrymple's books have won numerous awards and prizes, including the Wolfson Prize for History, the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, the Hemingway, the Kapuściński, the Arthur Ross Medal of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award. He writes regularly for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and The Guardian.

Organizer
Kalidip Choudhury
Notes

This program has 2 types of tickets available: in-person and online-only. Please pre-register to receive a link to the live-stream event.

The Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public forum; we welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our programming.

An Asia-Pacific Affairs Member-led Forum program. Forums and chapters at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.

Dalrymple photo by Debbie Mitra Singh; courtesy the publisher.

Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs.

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Mon, Sep 22 / 5:30 PM PDT

Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California
110 The Embarcadero
Toni Rembe Rock Auditorium
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States

Speakers
Image - William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple

CBE, Historian; Author

Image - Kalidip Choudhury

Kalidip Choudhury

Ph.D., Chair, Asia-Pacific Affairs Member-led Forum, Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California—Moderator

Format

5 p.m. doors open & check-in
5:30–6:30 p.m program
6:30 p.m. book signing
(all times Pacific Time)

COST

Members receive 30–50 percent discounts (not a member? Join)

In-person:
$25 
$58 with a book
Free for Leadership Circle members and students (without a book)
Online:
$5 
$38 with a book