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About Nicholas Gordon
Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.
NBN Episodes hosted by Nicholas:
March 19, 2026
Half Light
On Sep. 6, 2018, India’s Supreme Court ruled that Section 377, a law that criminalized consensual homosexual activity, was unconstitutional, reversing…
March 12, 2026
Borneo
Borneo—split between two countries, home to some of the world’s oldest rainforests and a vast array of animal and plant life—is back in the news. The …
March 5, 2026
Islamic China
Can someone be Chinese and Muslim? For some academics, this has been a surprisingly fraught question, with some asserting that Chinese Muslims are not…
February 26, 2026
Ancient Civilizations of Afghanistan
Today, Afghanistan–if it ever reaches global headlines–is portrayed as an unstable land, known more for the wars great powers fight (and often lose) o…
February 19, 2026
Silk Mirage
In September 2016, Islam Karimov–the first president of a post-Soviet Uzbekistan–died, at age 78. His death ended an oppressive dictatorship that had …
February 12, 2026
The Wall Dancers
Not too long ago, in the 2000s and 2010s, many felt that the internet–even one behind the Great Firewall–would bring about a more open China. As Presi…
February 5, 2026
Ghosted
Delhi is haunted—by its ghosts, its ruins, and its unending capacity for rebirth. In the shadow of medieval mosques and Mughal tombs, the past refuses…
January 29, 2026
Becoming Arab
Today, much of the Middle East is “Arab”—an identity that now extends across North Africa and up through the Near East to Syria. Yet how did this regi…
January 22, 2026
Speaking of History
What does it mean to be a historian? How do you try to explain the past when sources are lacking? And how do we talk about history when it’s so politi…
January 15, 2026
The Indian Caliphate
In 1924, the Republic of Turkey voted to abolish the Ottoman caliphate, ending a 400-year-long claim by the Ottomans that they were the leaders of the…
January 8, 2026
The New Byzantines
Where does Greece belong? Many look at the ancient Greek ruins of Athens, and see the cradle of Western civilization. But much of Greece’s history act…
January 1, 2026
The Great Reversal
In the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I tried to send several letters to her Chinese counterpart, the Wan Li Emperor. The letters tried to ask the…
December 25, 2025
Caste
Caste has been a huge topic of conversation in modern India. Yet debates and activism around caste discrimination have spread beyond South Asia. Caste…
December 18, 2025
The Party’s Interests Come First
Xi Zhongxun’s career spanned the entirety of China’s modern history. Born just two years after the 1911revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty, Xi …
December 11, 2025
Fuji
The Great Wave is perhaps the most famous piece of Japanese artwork: a roaring blue wave and three boats on the ocean. And far in the background is Mt…
December 4, 2025
Assassins and Templars
The Assassins and the Templars. Two groups that are now part of popular legend–and not just because of Assassin’s Creed, the massive video game franch…
November 27, 2025
Monsoon Voyagers
In 1924, the Al-A‘waj, also known as the Crooked, set sail from Kuwait on a trading journey around the Persian Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz, to …
November 20, 2025
Horses
In 2016, Ludovic Orlando, a genetics researcher, embarked on the Pegasus Project, an ambitious endeavor to use genetics to discover the origin of the …
November 13, 2025
Captives and Companions
Slavery has been a ubiquitous practice throughout much of world history–and the Muslim world was no exception. Slave soldiers, concubines, and eunuchs…
November 6, 2025
Into the Leopard's Den
Into the Leopard’s Den (Pegasus / Hachette India: 2025), the latest novel in the Bangalore Detective Club series by Harini Nagendra, opens with a home…
October 30, 2025
Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons
War, and the threat of war, spurs governments to invest in secret military technologies and weapons. Imperial Japan, ahead of the Second World War, wa…
October 23, 2025
The House of Awadh
Begum Wilayat Mahal, the self-proclaimed heir to the House of Awadh, has fascinated journalists and writers for decades. She claimed she was Indian ro…
October 16, 2025
Between Two Rivers
In 1923, archaeologist Leonard Woolley stumbled upon a room that dated back to 530BC, the time of the Babylonians. Oddly, the room was filled with art…
October 9, 2025
The Original Daughter
Genevieve Yang, the protagonist of Jemimah Wei’s debut novel The Original Daughter (Doubleday/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2025) works a dead-end job in Sin…