History-Themed Gift Guide
Things I've enjoyed and am gifting this year
The gifting season is here! And everyone’s putting out gift guides.
I have several family and friends who are history buffs, and I was finding gifts they would like. I’m updating my wishlist as well, and there’s a lot of history-themed stuff on there. You might appreciate this curated list, given if you’re subscribed here, you probably care about history.
None of this is sponsored content, it’s just things I think are amazing.
Harappan Dancing Girl
Peepul Tree is a history website, and has a store with a lot of traditional Indian crafts. Some of the items are replicas of famous historical objects.
My favorite is the Harappan Dancing Girl. I got this a few years ago. It is a great conversation piece and also completely toddler-proof. It’s a beautiful figurine that is made my artisans from Bengal, using the dhokra lost-wax method of casting metal.
Buy it on the Peepul Tree website here.
Harappan Seals
These are replicas of the most famous Harappan seals, and are made of terracotta. You can buy them on the Peepal Tree website as well. Links:
Lamassu
Lamassu are guardian deities from Assyria. I suppose they like a sphinx - the head of a man, the body of a bull or lion, and the wings of an eagle. The first time I came across one was in the Met Museum in New York, where two large Lamassu guard the entrance to the Mesopotamian wing, and I stood transfixed, looking at the painstakingly carved details, especially the beards.
While I’d like nothing more than to live somewhere protected by these deities at the gates, that seems quite expensive.
You can get small replicas for as low as $24.95 on Amazon that are like 12cm tall.
But my favorite has been these Lamassu bookends at the Met store for $138. I like it because it’s a very creative kind of bookend, and it just goes on your bookshelf.
That said, these are guardian deities, and they probably need the same kind of respect and reverance you’d give an Aiyanaar.
Sculptures
Vases/Amphorae
I was looking to gift vases, and I found these replica amphorae with scenes from Greek myths on them, like this one with Athena and Zeus.
And this one looks more recognizably ‘Greek’, with a scene of Hercules and the Nemean lion.
That’s all the replica artefacts that I found interesting. Now onto the books.
Books
I like it when books I get as gifts are two of three - light, gripping, something everyone else is reading. I like reading books and then discussing them, especially with the person who gifted it to me.
Ocean Of Churn by Sanjeev Sanyal. This is the best beginner Indian history book I’ve found. It looks at history from the point of view of the Indian Ocean, which means that South India and the Indian diaspora are centered in this telling of our history, right from ships traveling between Lothal and Mesopotamia, to a detailed, yet engaging history of how Europeans conquered India and Indonesia. It’s not the usual book that focuses too heavily on the wars for the throne of Delhi, and thank heavens, because other stuff is much more interesting.
On the same note, I came across The Boundless Sea - A Human History Of The Ocean by David Abulafia. It’s much lengthier and is detailed yet readable. The author is a professor of Mediterranean history at Cambridge University.
Keeping with the sea theme, this is one of the best historical fiction books I’ve read - Deep As The Sky, Red As The Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig. It’s about a legendary Chinese pirate queen Sheng Yeuk. It is so vividly and beautifully written, with a strong focus on historicity and emotional authenticity. In a lot of historical fiction with female protagonists, there is a temptation to make her “not like other women” of her era and force-fit present-day perspectives onto her thinking. Rita Chang-Eppig prefers her protagonist to be vulnerable, emotionally deep, and very much a woman of her time who rises to the demands of her difficult circumstances while very much being flawed and complicated.
And it’s been a while since the British Royals have been in a news, but when they were a year or two ago, there were a whole slew of books about them. One of them that I enjoyed reading was Tina Brown’s The Palace Papers: Inside The House of Windsor - The Truth And The Turmoil. This book starts off in the aftermath of Diana’s death and takes us through all the royal scandals over 25 years. It’s the right amount of gossipy, and the right amount of rigorous. It’s addictively readable. It’s also fun to read things of historical note after having lived through that era. I didn’t really pay much attention to the British royals, but reading this book, I realized how much coverage of them I remember, and it was nicely nostalgic in taking me back to past years.
And from the same era, this book is close to my heart - Birds Beasts And Bandits - 14 Days with Veerappan by Krupakar and Senani. Back when Veerappan still prowled the forests of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, one of the early incidents I remember was when he kidnapped Krupakar and Senani, two wildlife photographers, who he thought were important government officials. He tried using them to negotiate with the government. I don’t remember the demands, but in 1997, it was probably something like amnesty for him and his gang so they don’t have to stand trial for 250 killings, innumerable counts of killing elephants for ivory, and still many counts of smuggling sandalwood. But what’s interesting is how being wildlife photographers, Krupakar and Senani shared a lot of the concerns that Veerappan did and found themselves witnessing scenes from nature they never believed they could. There’s some Stockholm Syndrome here though, where they seem to humanize their captor a bit too much for my taste. But it’s an interesting book nevertheless, and as an adult with more defined ideas of good and bad, I enjoy reading about this incident that I saw covered in the papers as a child.
Last but not the least, since many on here are interested in Indian revolutionaries, you must, must, must read Sanjeev Sanyal’s Revolutionaries if you haven’t already. It’s an eminently readable journey through the Indian revolutionary movement with lots of interesting detail and paints a great picture of how to view our independence struggle.
Happy gifting!
What an awesome guide. I will gift a few of those books to myself.