Eastern Europe 1901-2001, in the shadow of empires

My interest in the first world war got rekindled in the last few weeks. I had read the Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914 (which I highly recommend) a few years ago. Recently, I started watching BBC's 10 part documentary on the first world war. I was thinking about this contagious stretch of territory from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic, Aegean and Black Sea, sandwiched between the larger (and stronger) Germany and Russia, that houses around 180 million people today. Except for a brief period under the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (16th to 18th century), the fate of this land and its people seems to be to stay under the shadow of one or more empires or major powers. The 20th century seems to have been particularly brutal for each of these countries. Because of their fractured political history, many of these countries have been a tinderbox of ethnicities that have erupted from time to time. They have also, in some form or another been victims of the two biggest catastrophes of the 20th century: Nazism and communism. Many of these countries, actively or passively, participated in the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing of Jews during the second world war. 

This post briefly examines the 100 year history of each of these countries, from 1901 to 2001. 

Poland (2020: population 38 million,  per capita GDP (PPP) $35,651). In 1901, Poland did not exist as a sovereign state. Its territories were divided between Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. During the first world war, Poland was a major theater, when Russia attacked Germany, and later when Russia was beaten back after the battle of Tannenberg. After the treaty of Brest-Litovsk that the new Bolshevik government signed with the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Turkey, and Bulgaria), Russia ceded the land it controlled in Poland, including Warsaw, to the Central powers. And, after the defeat of the Central powers, an independent republic of Poland was created. That lasted 20 years, until Nazi Germany started the second world war by attacking and occupying western Poland, and Soviet Union, as part of the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop plan, occupied eastern Poland. In the second world war, Poland lost 6 million people, almost one-sixth of its pre-war population; including 3 million Polish Jews.

After the Soviet victory and occupation, a new Poland, with a communist government was installed, with its borders moved westwards. The East Prussian city of Koenigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad and still remains under Russian control. The Free City of Danzig became part of Poland again as Gdansk. The Gdansk shipyard was the birthplace of the Solidarity movement that played a role in the demise of communism. Today, Poland is part of NATO (joined in 1999) as well as the European Union (joined in 2004). 

Czechia (2020: population 11 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $40,428) In 1901, what is today's Czechia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the defeat and break-up of Austria-Hungary, an independent Czechoslovakia, comprised of Bohemia (where Prague is),  Moravia-Silesia (Brno),  parts of older Hungarian kingdom (Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia) was formed. It was a multi-ethnic unitary state with Czech, Slovak, Polish, German, Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Romanian speaking people. So, ethnic tensions were a feature of the republic. In 1938, as part of the Munich agreement, without involving Czechoslovakia, Britain and France allowed the German speaking Sudetenland region of Bohemia to be merged with Nazi Germany. After that, a part of the Slovak territory was ceded to Hungary. In 1939, Nazi Germany occupied what remained of Bohemia. A Slovak state declared independence, and Hungary occupied Carpathia. The Red Army occupied Czechoslovakia in 1945, and the German residents were expelled. A communist government was put in power 1948. Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviets in 1968 during the Prague Spring reforms and protests. The communist party rule collapsed in 1989, and Vaclav Havel became president. In 1992, Slovakia broke up to become an independent republic. Today, Czechia is part of NATO (joined in 1999) as well as the European Union (joined in 2004). 

Slovakia (2020: population 5.5 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $32,616) Slovakia too, started the 20th century as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  The common Czechoslovak history is covered in the earlier section. The main difference between the Czech portion and the Slovak portion is that the Slovak portion was under Hungary, in the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy; and got less autonomy. Slovakia had been part of the kingdom of Hungary for almost 1000 years, even through the Ottoman domination of Hungary. After the first World War, Slovakia was incorporated in the independent Czechoslovakia. Between 1939-1945 a Nazi puppet Slovak state was established, which collapsed as the Red Army invaded. Soon after the communist rule in Czechoslovakia collapsed in 1989, the Slovak republic declared its independence in 1992. Today, Slovakia is part of NATO (joined in 1999) as well as the European Union (joined in 2004). It adopted the Euro as its currency in 2009.

Hungary (2020: population 10 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $31,578) In 1901, Hungary was part of the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Austria-Hungary was established as part of a compromise signed in 1867 that restored the sovereignty of the former kingdom of Hungary. The kingdom contained Transylvania which is now part of Romania. This union was dissolved in 1918 after Austria-Hungary lost the war. Between 1918-20, as part of the post-war peace treaty and subsequent wars in Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Serbia, the kingdom of Hungary lost 72% of its territory. After that, Hungary gradually drifted towards Germany and Italy internationally, and towards anti-semitism domestically. During the second world war, Hungary was part of the Axis powers (Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy), and temporarily regained some of its lost territories by invading Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. German troops occupied Hungary in 1944, but they were driven out by the advancing Soviet troops in 1945. After that, Hungary became a communist state. In 1990, as communism was collapsing in Eastern Europe, Hungary transitioned to a democratic form of government. Today, Hungary is part of NATO (joined in 1999) as well as the European Union (joined in 2004).

Romania (2020: population 20 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $24,000 est.) In 1901, the kingdom of Romania was a newly independent kingdom formed through the personal union of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Romania's world war history is a story of swinging loyalties. Although Romania was secretly allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary, it stayed neutral in the first world war until the Entente (France and Britain) promised them territory. During and after the first world war, Romania gained territories from Austria-Hungary (Transylvania, that already had ethnic Romanians,  and Bukovina) and Russia (Bessarabia: part of modern day Moldova and Ukraine). The new territories had German, Russian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian minorities, which led to flare-ups in the 1920s as well as the loss of northern Transylvania to Hungary. By the late 1930s, King Carol II declared a royal dictatorship. During the second world war, Romania wanted to stay on the winning side. It started neutral, but then lost Bessarabia to the Soviet Union in 1940. When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the Romanians joined the Nazis and went as far as Stalingrad with the invading Nazis. But when the Soviets attacked in 1944, King Michael I led a successful coup and aligned with the Soviets. The Romanians then marched with the Soviets and recovered the part of Transylvania that they had lost to Hungary. But it lost its Moldovan territories to the Soviet Union. Romania became a communist country following the Soviet occupation, and it stayed that way until Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown and executed in 1989. Today, Romania is part of NATO (joined in 2004) as well as the European Union (joined in 2007).

Moldova (2020: population 3.5 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $5,700) In 1901, the current territory of Moldova was divided between the Kingdom of Romania and Russia. After the first world war, some of the Russian parts went to Romania that the Soviet Union later regained and incorporated into the Moldovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, inside Ukraine SSR. After 1940, it incorporated Bessarabia into Moldavia and created the Moldovian SSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moldova declared independence in 1991. A separatist movement in Transnistria controls a tiny strip of land, and is an unrecognized but a defacto independent republic inside Moldova. Moldova is not a member of NATO or the European Union.

Ukraine (2020: population 42 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $10,130) In 1901, today's Ukriane was divided between Austria-Hungary (Galicia, administered by Austria) and the Russian Empire. Kiev, the capital was of Ukraine had been a part of Russia since 1667. Ukrainians fought on both sides in the first world war. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the end of the first world war, between the end of 1918 and August 1920, Kiev, the capital, changed hands sixteen times. From 1921 to 1991, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union as Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, except for a period of two years between 1941-1943 when it was under Nazi occupation. In 1954, as a sign of goodwill, the former Khanate of Crimea (that was part of Russia since 1783) was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became independent. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014, and since then, the eastern part of Ukraine has been held by pro-Russian separatists. Ukraine, as a country, is emotionally split between the pro-EU west and the pro-Russia east. As of 2020, Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe, along with Moldova.

Bulgaria (2020: population 7 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $22,304) In 1901, Bulgaria was an autonomous principality within the Ottoman Empire. In 1908, Bulgaria declared full independence from the Ottoman Turks. It was part of the Balkan League (along with Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro) that defeated the Ottoman empire in the first Balkan war of 1912-13. However, dissatisfied with its share of its spoils, it declared war on Greece and Serbia again in 1913, starting the second Balkan War, which resulted in loss of territory. In the first World War, Bulgaria started neutral, but later sided with the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey) and had initial victories over Serbia and Macedonia. However, by the end of the war, it was not able to hold on to any of the territories, and suffered a national catastrophe for the second time in five years, including paying war reparations. Between 1919 and 1941, Bulgaria was politically unstable, with coups, successful and unsuccessful assassinations of its leaders. In the Second World War, Bulgaria started out neutral, but later joined the Axis powers in 1941. As the war progressed, Bulgaria occupied parts of Greece, Serbia, and Macedonia. But when Nazi Germany declared war on the Soviet Union in June 1941, Bulgaria didn't, and tried to stay away from active conflict with the Soviet Union. By 1944, when it was clear that the Nazis were losing, Bulgaria first declared neutrality, and then under Soviet pressure, declared war on Germany. This created a situation where Bulgaria was simultaneously at war with all four major belligerents: Germany, UK, US, and USSR. At the end of the second world war, Bulgaria was occupied by the Soviets and a communist regime was installed. In 1990, Bulgaria transitioned to parliamentary democracy. Today, Bulgaria is part of NATO (joined in 2004) as well as the European Union (joined in 2007).

Serbia (2020: population 7 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $17,617) In 1901, the newly independent Kingdom of Serbia was looking at ways to get ethnic Serbians under both the Ottoman Turk and the Austro-Hungarian empire in its fold. In the treaty the recognized Serbia's formal independence from Ottoman rule, in 1878, Serbia was explicitly prohibit from doing so, when Bosnia-Herzegovina was put under Austria-Hungary. This would eventually lead to the spark that would start the first world war. In the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, Serbia gained additional Ottoman territory, and also became a larger threat to Austria-Hungary, because it became an anchor for the unification of the Serbs and other southern Slavs in Austria-Hungary. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist led Austria to declare war on Serbia, and the inter-dependent alliances flared up into the first world war. Serbia suffered major losses in the war, including losing more than half its Army. But as Austria-Hungary collapsed by the end of the war, a new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed in 1918 by merging Serbia with the Austro-Hungarian states of Croatia and Slovenia. This was officially named the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, under the personal dictatorship of King Alexander I. The alliance of the Serbs and the Croats were always uneasy, with Serbia vying for an upper hand and centralization, and the Croats seeking more autonomy. In the second world war, Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers, and a rump Serbian territory was placed under the military occupation of the German Wehrmacht. Communist partisans led by Josip Broz Tito regained Yugoslavia by 1945, and a one-party communist state was established. Tito ruled until 1980, but after his death and the collapse of communism, Yugoslavia broke up descended into civil war along the old ethnic lines. In 2008, the ethnic Albanian majority area of Kosovo declared its independence, although Serbia (and Russia) have not recognized it. Serbia is not yet a member of NATO or the European Union.

Croatia (2020: population 4 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $24,100 est) In 1901, Croatia was part of Austria-Hungary, governed by the Kingdom of Hungary, as part of the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement of 1868. Croats and Serbs speak a mutually understandable language, but Croatian is written in the Latin script while Serbian is written in the Cyrillic script. This is very similar to the story of Hindi and Urdu: the (almost) same language written with two different scripts. Also, Croatians are Catholic and Serbians are Orthodox Christians. After the breakup of Austria-Hungary in 1918, Croatia joined with Slovenia and Serbia to build what would become Yugoslavia. In the second world war, when Yugoslavia was occupied by the Axis powers, a Nazi backed independent Croatia was setup that collapsed before the end of the war. It then became part of the communist ruled Yugoslavia, which lasted until 1991. Croatia declared independence in 1991 as Yugoslavia broke up into a civil war that lasted until 1995 for Croatia. Today, Croatia is a member of NATO (since 2009) and the European Union (since 2013).

Bosnia and Herzegovina (2020: population 3.3 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $11,400 est). In 1901, Bosnia-Herzegovina was ruled by Austria-Hungary, as part of the 1878 peace treaty following the Russo-Turkish War. It was officially considered part of the Ottoman-Turk Empire, although it was de-facto governed by Austria-Hungary. The people were Bosnian Muslims (still loyal to the Ottomans), Orthodox Serbs (sympathetic to Serbia), and Catholic Croats. In 1908, Austria-Hungary formally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was recognized by Serbia, Russia, and the Ottomans. On 28 June 1914, the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo (the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina), by a member of a secret Serbian-supported movement, Young Bosnia sparked the first world war. After the war, Bosnia joined the union that would eventually become the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In the second world war, when Yugoslavia was occupied by the Nazis, Bosnia was ceded to the independent state of Croatia. After the second world war, it became part of communist Yugoslavia. After Yugoslavia collapsed, Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence in 1992, which was opposed by the Bosnia Serbs, and that started the Bosnian war (1992-1995) between the Bosniak Muslims, Croats, and ethnic Serbs. The conflict ended in December 1995 when the parties signed the Dayton Agreement and they agreed to have the peace treaty enforced by a NATO-led peacekeeping force. Bosnia is not a member of NATO or the EU, although it has applied for membership of both. 

Slovenia (2020: population 2 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $40,344). In 1901, today's Slovenia was part of Austria-Hungary. After the first world war, it became part of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes that eventually became the kingdom of Yugoslavia. During the second world war, Slovenia was divided between  Fascist Italy, Hungary, and the Nazi puppet state of Croatia. It got re-incorporated into Yugoslavia in 1945. After the fall of communism, Slovenia declared independence in 1991 and it succeeded in breaking out of Yugoslavia following a Ten-Day War. Today, Slovenia is a member of NATO (since 2004) and the European Union (since 2004). It adopted the Euro in 2007.

North Macedonia (2020: population 2 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $17,378) In 1901, today's North Macedonia was part of the Ottoman-Turk empire. After the Balkan Wars it was annexed into Serbia, and during the first world war, it was occupied by Bulgaria. After the end of the first world war, it became part of Yugoslavia. During the second world war, it was divided between Bulgaria and Fascist Italian occupied Albania. After the war, it was re-incorporated in Yugoslavia. Following the break-up of Yugoslavia, it declared independence in 1991, and it stayed relatively peaceful through the Yugoslav civil war, compared to neighboring Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia, in-spite of tensions between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians. North Macedonia is a member of NATO (joined in 2020) and has begun talks to join the European Union.

Montenegro (2020: population 600,000, per capita GDP (PPP) $1,977) In 1901, Montenegro was an independent principality that became a Kingdom in 1910. During the first world war, Montenegro was occupied by Austria-Hungary between 1916-18. After the war, it joined the union that would become Yugoslavia. During the second world war, Fascist Italy occupied it. After the second world war, it joined Yugoslavia again. During the Yugoslavian civil war, it stayed aligned with Serbia. In 2006, following a referendum, it declared independence. Montenegro is part of NATO (joined in 2017) but not a member of the European Union. 

Albania (2020: population 3 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $14,866) In 1901, Albania was part of the Ottoman-Turk empire. In 1912, Albania declared independence that eventually established the Principality of Albania in 1914. The first world war kept Albania under political confusion, with neighboring Italy, Greece, and Serbia claiming and occupying territory. Even after the first world war, Yugoslavia and Italy had claims on Albanian territory. In 1925, it became a protectorate of Italy. During the second world war, it was occupied by Fascist Italy, and later by Nazi Germany. After 1944, it become a communist dictatorship that eventually transitioned into a democratic republic in 1992. Albania is a member of NATO (since 2009), but not a member of the European Union.

Greece (2020: population 11 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $30,357). Greece is considered a southern European nation, and not part of Eastern Europe. But its history is tied to the Balkans. In 1901, the Kingdom of Greece was a constitutional monarchy under the Danish George I, the grandfather of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and the brother-in-law of Edward VII. Greece had been involved with wars against Ottoman Turkey that continued until 1922. The monarchy was abolished in 1924, and restored in 1936. During the second world war, Greece fought against Italian invasion, but fell in 1941 when Nazi Germany dispatched troops. Greece was liberated by the Allies in 1944. It was ruled by a military junta between 1967–1974. Greece is a member of NATO (since 1952) and of the EU (since 1981). It adopted the Euro in 2001. 

Baltic states: Latvia (2020 pop: 2 million, GDP per capita: $27,300 est),  Lithuania (2020 pop: 3 million, GDP per capita $38,751), Estonia (2020 pop: 1.3 million, GDP per capita $37,606). In 1901, all the Baltic states were part of the Russian Empire. They declared independence from Russia after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, but by 1940, the Soviets had reconquered the Baltic states. They declared their independence again after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. All three countries are members of the EU and NATO since 2004. Estonia adopted the Euro in 2011, Latvia in 2014, and Lithuania in 2015. 

This was a very short summary of the hundred years of the "land between the greater powers". It is very hard to predict what the next hundred years will mean for the region. Russia would definitely want its empire back, in some form or another. Given Russia's long memory of attacks by the French (1812) and the Germans (1914, 1941), there is very little chance of having long-term peace with the eastward expanding European Union and NATO. As the Yugoslav civil war has shown, long-term peace still needs the involvement the United States, (through NATO) but it is unclear if the US has the appetite to serve as the peacekeeper forever. The European Union can serve as a unifying common market and a monetary union, but a political, fiscal, or military union is a distant dream, and perhaps undesirable. The whole region is so fractured, with memories of ethnic and religious conflicts going back to thousands of years, it is inconceivable that there will be any thing other than dozens of nationalities and ethnicities trying to coexist. The closest stable model is that of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, but it is very hard to build a stable multi-ethic state in this region.

I have written this more as my notes to help me understand the 20th century history of Eastern Europe and not as an academic paper. If there are errors in the narrative, or my understanding, please leave a comment and I will correct it.

Ten Documents (treaties, bills, acts, theses, manifestos) that changed World History

A few years ago, I wrote a post on the seven battles that changed the world. Recently, while reading that post again, I was wondering if world history is determined by kings, generals and soldiers; or by diplomats, scientists, preachers, and legislators. So this post tries to investigate the major documents that changed world history. Some of them are International Treaties and some of them were local laws that had a tremendous impact. One of them is even a letter from a scientist to a president.

1. Magna Carta (15 June 1215), or the "Great Charter" was the first documented agreement in the medieval world between a monarch and the nobility to limit the powers of the monarch. This forms the foundation of not only the constitutional monarchy of England (later, Great Britain), but also the foundation of various democratic republics all over the world, including the United States and India. This is the first document that challenged the "divine right of kings", and subjected the king to the common law of the land.

2. Martin Luther's 95 Theses (31 October 1517), or the "disputation on the power and efficacy of indulgences", started as an academic condemnation of indulgences (papal forgiveness of "sins" in return for money) tha over time, turned into a larger revolt against the Roman Catholic Church. This marks the beginning of the  (Protestant) Reformation, and also the beginning of a series of wars, political and theological re-alignment in Europe. I consider this reformation distinct from the English reformation, which started when Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic on the issue of the annulment of his first marriage. But that's another story.

3. Peace of Westphalia (May-October 1648) is a series of treaties (Treaty of Münster, Peace of Münster, Treaty of Osnabrück) that ended the European wars of religion that were triggered by the protestant reformation. The wars of religion weren't strictly a Catholic vs. Protestant game, as Catholic France were fighting against Habsburg Austria and Spain. It ended the Thirty Year's War (1618-1648), one of the most brutal conflicts of history, until the two world wars in in the 20th century upstaged it. It also ended the Eighty Year's War (1566-1648, technically 82 years) between Spain and the Dutch Republic. It marked the beginning of a new world order, referred to as the Westphalian system which established the principle of international law that each state has exclusive sovereignty of its territory. It also established the principle of letting states (their princes) determine the religion of the state, as well as the protection of the rights of the minority religion.

4. English Bill of Rights (1689) defines the constitutional monarchy of Great Britain, guarantees the subjects their civil rights (including freedom of speech), limits the powers of the monarch, and defines the powers of the Parliament.  Principles of the English Bill of Rights, like "no taxation without representation" were used by the English colonists to challenge the British rule a hundred years later. Many parts of the English Bill of rights found its way into the US Bill of Rights, including "That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law", which, reworded and re-edited, became the second amendment (see below).

5. United States Declaration of Independence (1776), United States Constitution (1787) and the US Bill of Rights (Amendments 1-10 to the US constitution).
They are three different documents, written and adopted at slightly different times by different people. But together, they not only define the United States, they define a universal vision.
In my conversation with friends, I frequently mention that there is something universal about them: they embody the hopes and aspiration of a group of people against oppression and state terror. They aren't perfect, nor have they been perfectly applied, but they define the birth and maturity of a nation built from scratch.  It is this vision that the US used to fight Nazi tyranny, it is this vision that differentiated the western world from the Soviet led world order during the Cold War.  One interesting thing I found while reading the the declaration of independence is that the US Declaration of Independence lists the misdeeds of George III the same way the English Bill of Rights lists the misdeeds of James II.

6. Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 1789), or Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789, defined individual and collective rights at the time of the French Revolution,  passed by the French National Assembly. The French and American revolutions were inspired by each others' principles of universal right of man, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, separation of powers, and  safeguards against arbitrary state power. The idea of limiting the monarch's power that was set in motion starting 1215, culminated in a republican form of government with the American and French revolutions. The French revolution itself turned messy, and the reign of terror that followed it didn't live up to the promises of the universal declarations. Nevertheless, this document is recognized as the "credo of the new age". 

7. The Communist Manifesto (1848). The previous documents slowly built up the rights of the nobility, states, and the citizens against the arbitrary power of the monarch or the church. With the advent of the industrial revolution, the question of the rights of the workers against the arbitrary power of the owners of capital also came up. This document, written by two German philosophers questioned the then social and political order (in the middle of the revolutions of 1848), and presented the situation as a class struggle between the workers and the capitalists over the control of the means of industrial production, and envisioned an international socialist utopian state. This eventually sparked another kind of revolution (from 1917), one which on paper established a state based on equality, but in practice required the power of the gun, and the restrictions on individual freedom to maintain. Although the systems eventually collapsed in 1991, the allure of such a society and system of government still remains.

8. Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) defined the modern Middle East. I find it ironic that the principal victorious powers of the First World War: Britain and France would deny the nations of the erstwhile sick man of Europe (Ottoman Empire) the same right of self-determination that they have been fighting for centuries. It was a secret treaty between Britain and France to divide up the Arabic speaking parts of the Ottoman Empire; while encouraging the Arabs to rebel against the Turkish rule and promising them an independent state. The mistakes of the other disastrous treaty of the first world war, the treaty of Versailles, got settled by 1945. But Sykes-Picot agreement has left this region in flames and chaos for more than a century. It did define a new order, but one that is inherently unstable and violent.

9. Einstein–Szilárd letter (August 2, 1939) is the document that officially launched the atomic age. It was a "call to action" to President Franklin Roosevelt, to develop the weapons of mass destruction, before the enemy can. Roosevelt acted on it, set up an advisory committee on uranium, which was the beginning of the US effort to develop the atomic bomb. The rest, as they say, is history. But it is unclear if the destructive power unleashed through this will eventually save humanity, or terminate it.

10. RFC 791: Internet Protocol (IP): (1981). This document created the internet age! This isn't a legal document, nor is it an agreement or a treaty, but a technical specification of how packets of data should travel between computers to enable electronic communication. Almost everything we call the internet today, and the trillion dollar economy that it created, started with the IP specification.

I have left the holy books out of the list, even though I acknowledge that they have had an outsized human impact. I did keep Martin Luther's 95 Thesis, because I think it had an even more outsized impact, especially in European political history.  I am still a bit ambivalent about leaving out Sir Isaac Netwon's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica from the 17th century, and al-Khwarizmi's al-Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wal-muqābala (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing) from the 9th century. These two books, along with the 20th century research on relativity and quantum mechanics redefined science and technology for all of us.

This is still work-in-progress, this post was in the draft state for years until I decided that I should publish it first and then continue editing it.

Do let me know what you think of this post.

What makes a great engineering manager?

This post tries to explain what engineering managers do, and what makes an engineering manager “great”. In my opinion, engineering managers have four roles. Great engineering managers excel at two of them, at least. 

People manager and coach: This involves hiring, developing, coaching, and managing the team's performance. This also involves setting the vision for the team, setting goals and then creating a culture of accountability, including holding themselves accountable. The best people managers bring out the best in their employees, and take a personal stake in the career development, growth, and learning of their employees. The teams of the best people managers are characterized by high retention, high productivity (their teams get a lot done) and high work satisfaction. To borrow a sports analogy: a great people manager operates as a team captain, coach, cheerleader, and talent scout at the same time.

Architect (or Technical Lead): Engineering managers have to operate with a very good understanding of the architecture of what their team is building, and what their team owns. They have to participate in, influence, and drive their own team’s as well as partner team’s architecture. In many cases, they are expected to work across company boundaries. Internally, they are accountable for making their team’s code corpus reasonably future-proof. They are also accountable for the quality of code their team produces. The best in the role not only understand how their pieces work, but also how everything else is connected to each other. The teams of the best software architects are characterized by low product defects, low maintenance costs, and a high-availability service.

Project Manager: Engineering managers are accountable for their team’s delivery and the timeliness. As part of this, they are involved in their team’s planning sessions, they have ways to track their team’s progress, and they are also involved in retrospective sessions on making their team’s execution better. They also have ways to keep track on partner and dependent team’s work. 

Product Manager: Engineering Managers should have the vision of not only the “what” and the “how”, but also of the “why” of what their team is building. As part of that, they need to understand the customer, how their product or service will get used, and how their product or service is being used. The best engineering managers happen to be an equal peer to their product manager counterpart, and provide inputs at the requirements and specification phase.

I have found these pillars to be true for an engineering manager of a team of six to VP of Engineering of a multi-site organization. As engineering managers grow in responsibility and scale, their “coach” and “product manager” roles become more important. They end up delegating many of the details of the project management and software architecture roles to their network; but focus more on the “systemic and risk-management” aspect of software architecture and project management. Most of my favorite engineering managers are excellent people managers and coaches, and then excel in at least one of the other three.

So, where does strategy and strategic thinking fit in? I belong to the school of management that believes that great execution is the best strategy. A great manager focuses on fine tuning their execution, and as part of that, they think about structure. For example, a software developer thinks about the structure of their code. At the design level, they think about the structure of their classes, or modules. At a much higher level, they think about the structure of multiple processes and components. Similarly, at a team manager level the structure is at the individual interaction level. At an organization level, the structure is about how teams interact with each other. At the company level, it is not only how organizations interact with each other, but how the external environment and the business environment interact with the company. 

Great managers operate at the right structural level, and they not only think about the static structure but also the dynamic structure. That means, just having an organizational chart with roles and responsibilities (static structure) is not enough; what is equally important is how the components of the chart (the various individuals in the team, the teams in the organization, the organizations in the company) interact with each other as part of executing towards the common goal.

Interesting articles of 2019

Here are the top 10 articles that I read, liked, and shared in 2019.

Feedback Fallacy (HBR): An insightful article explaining why conventional feedback rarely does what it is designed to.

How to demonstrate strategic thinking skills (HBR): I believe that the best way to demonstrate "strategic thinking" is by doing; this article gives some advice on how to make others believe that one has the ability.

The care and feeding of software engineers: or, why software engineers are grumpy. It reads like a "user manual for managing engineers", but it goes beyond that and I found it funny too.

CNET's Echo Flex review: "This might be Amazon's smartest device in years". It isn't often do you find the tech press highlighting the small but important things that were thought through during product definition and development.

Long hours are a sign of a bad leader, and other leadership insights, from Microsoft's research. This is a summary of a longer New York Times article explaining how Microsoft is using data to get insights on leadership and employee satisfaction.

Why people really quit their jobs: Facebook's version of employee satisfaction data crunching. Interesting (and some already known) findings.

The catch-22 that broke the internet (Wired): an analysis of Google Cloud Platform's outage and the perils on depending on tools that need to connect to the network when the network is down. Google's analysis is at: https://status.cloud.google.com/incident/cloud-networking/19009

Notes on AI Bias: Ben Evans.“There’s a joke in Molière's Bourgeois Gentilhomme about a man who is taught that literature is divided into ‘poetry’ and ‘prose’, and is delighted to discover that he’s been speaking prose his whole life without realising. Statisticians might feel the same way today - they’ve been working on ‘artificial intelligence’ and ‘sample bias’ for their whole careers without realising.”

Is Alexa working? Ben Evans: It is a good analysis, with the main point at the very end. 

CES show report: Steve Sinovsky. 

My 2018 Book list

This is late, by almost 10 months, but here's the list:


Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I can't recommend this book enough, I am on my third reading. I will go a step further and encourage anyone who can to actually adopt the concepts in their daily lives. The book is rigorous, and also has some brilliant quotes. For example: “Entrepreneurs are heroes in our society. They fail for the rest of us”, “People who are bred, selected, and compensated to find complicated solutions do not have an incentive to implement simplified ones”,  “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything”, and my favorite: "Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio".

Jaya: An Illustrated retelling of the Mahabharata. I had listened to the audio-book a few years ago and loved it. So, I decided to get a Kindle edition. Although, I realized that I should have bought the paper version. Some of the charts and illustrations come out better on paper. I would highly recommend this one by Devdutt Pattanaik. The notes that are associated with the story, after a few pages are very insightful and so is the commentary weaved into the stories. "To understand Bharat (India), you have to read the Mahabharat. Multiple times."

My Gita. This can perhaps be renamed to "Gita for the curious managers": some of the text and diagrams feel like it has been designed for powerpoints. This is another of Devdutt Pattanaik's very engaging interpretation of the Bhagavat Gita.

Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom, by Thomas Ricks. I borrowed it from the public library. This could have easily been two separate books, but how many more Churchill biographies can one read, especially after the memoirs Churchill has written himself left. But the connection of the themes was interesting.

The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History, by Sanjeev Sanyal. This book was recommended to me by my friend Shomdip Dutta. It felt like the Indian version of Robert Kaplan's Monsoon: and equally engaging. I felt it floundered a bit when it came to reporting the events of the 20th century, but an interesting read.

The incredible history of India's geography: Another one by Sanjeev Sanyal, it turned out to be a good refresher of Indian history, but with the focus on geography and trade. He also tries to connect other parts of Asia to India through mythology. But I did feel that this was directed more towards the local Indian reader.

The Struggle for Pakistan: I love Ayesha Jalal's books and this one was no exception. The creation of Pakistan and the separation of Bengal and Punjab has always fascinated me, and Ayesha Jalal has walked the reader through the details of the pre-partition politics as well as the recent history up to 2013. It just ends on a depressing note: "The sobering fact is that the magnitude and range of problems besieging Pakistan are so enormous that even the best efforts on the part of a competent elected government may not be enough to steady the course." 

Home Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. This feels like the part 2 of Yuval Noah Hariri's earlier book, Sapiens but with more philosophical references and constructs. But as Yogi Berra said, "It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future".

Napoleon: A Life, by Andrew Roberts. I listened to the audiobook version and it turned out to be a great refresher on Napoleons life and French and European politics. 

From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia. This is Ambassador Michael McFaul's memoirs of his time in the Obama administration. This gave me some insight on what went wrong with the US-Russian relations after that (in)famous (and failed) "reset". And strangely, it made me see the Russian point of view.

Curzon: Imperial Statesman, by David Gilmour. Lord Curzon is the bête noire of Indian historians and politicians. But this book gave me a perspective of him as a statesman, and a competent administrator, something I suspected all along. He also played a big role in restoring historical buildings all over India that had fallen in disrepair. From one of his speeches: "Art and beauty, and the reverence that is owing to all that has evoked human genius or has inpsired human faith, are independent of creeds.....What is beautiful, what is historic, what tears the mask off the face of the past, and helps us read its riddles, and to look it in the eyes - these, and not the dogmas of a combative theology, are the principal criteria to which we must look". But he wasn't without his flaws.

Austerity: The history of a Dangerous Idea. I got introduced to Mark Blyth's ideas through my friend Egil Kvaleberg, who had me watch his lecture titled "Why people vote for those who work against their best interests". (Spoiler Alert: They don't!). That lecture intrigued me enough to buy this book which is a very well written and well argued historical narrative on why government austerity is a bad idea, especially when the economy isn't doing well. I think his next book will be about "Global Trumpism".

Capital: The Eruption of Delhi. A very depressing narrative of what has happened to Delhi, in the last 30 years since economic liberalization, by Rana Dasgupta.

Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan. Recommended by my journalist friend, Saibal Sen, it is an interesting account of the most powerful woman in the world in the early 17th century.

Books I read in 2017

Continuing my annual "Books I read" series, here's what I read last year:

Calculated risks: How to know when numbers deceive you, by Gerd Gigerenzer.

Risk Savvy: How to make good decisions, by Gerd Gigerenzer. Yes, another book on risks by the same author.

The real crash: America's coming bankruptcy-- how to save yourself and your country by Peter Schiff. And another one on risk (although a bit different from the earlier two) from the person who had warned about the subprime crisis in 2006 and was laughed out of the room.

Leadership on the line: Stay Alive through the dangers of change, by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky. This was a recommended leading for a leadership off-site and training.

Spaceman: an astronaut's unlikely journey to unlock the secrets of the universe, by Mike Massimino.

Scale: the universals laws of growth, innovation, sustainability, and the pace of life in organisms, cities, economies, and companies, by Geoffrey West.

A Geek in Japan: Discovering the land of Manga, Anime, Zen, and the Tea Ceremony, by Hector Garcia.

Algorithms to live by: the computer science of human decisions, by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths.

Originals: How non-conformists move the world, by Adam Grant. This was a recommended reading for another leadership off-site.

Misbehaving: the making of behavioral economics, by Richard Thaler. (2017 Nobel Economics winner).

Behave, the biology of humans at our best and worst, by Robert Sapolsky.

The gene: an intimate history, by Siddhartha Mukherjee. A science book written like a thriller.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.

The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st Century by Robert Shiller (2013 Nobel Economics Winner, who shared it with Eugene Fama and Lars Hansen)

Hillbilly Eligy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis by JD Vance. This is probably the best book I read last year. Explained a lot!

Sapiens: A brief history of humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Sufi Poetry: Prophecy and the Persian Sufi poets by Hazrat Inayat Khan.

My Early Life: 1874-1904, Winston Churchill

Books I read in 2016

Here's my annual "Books I read" series. This was a slower year.

Doctored : the disillusionment of an American physician by Sandeep Jauhar. An insight into the dysfunction that is our health-care system.

Elon Musk : Tesla, SpaceX, and the quest for a fantastic future by Ashlee Vance. I must admit that I didn't quite finish this one. 

The future of the mind : the scientific quest to understand, enhance, and empower the mind by Michio Kaku. And this one, like the Physics of the future that I read last year, is fascinating too.

High output management, by Andrew Grove. This was a second reading. 

Predictably irrational : the hidden forces that shape our decisions by Dan Ariely. 

Business adventures : twelve classic tales from the world of Wall Street by John Brooks

In Europe's shadow : two cold wars and a thirty-year journey through Romania and beyond  by Robert D. Kaplan. This one was geopolitics and travelogue rolled in one. I like Robert Kaplan's writing by other favorites are: The Revenge of geography and Monsoon. 

A time for truth : reigniting the promise of America, by Ted Cruz. I read this early in the year when I thought there might be a chance for him to win the primaries. And two chapters into the book, I realized that there is no way he's going to make it. 

The new paradigm for financial markets : the credit crisis of 2008 and what it means by George Soros. More an insight into George Soros mind than an insight into financial markets.

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don’t by Nate Silver. Ah, the book was insightful, but left me wondering whether he's a marketing guy or a math guy. His fivethirtyeight.org had issues with understanding and explaining probability. 

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark. This is the magnum opus that's a must read for understanding Europe of today. I really liked it.

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis. A lively narrative of Kahneman and Tversky's (Thinking fast and slow, Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel prize for Economics for his joint work with Tsversky) journey. There is something about the way Michael Lewis writes.

And, in fiction:

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two by JK Rowling. 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay by JK Rowling.

The Hunger games trilogy (Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay) by Suzanne Collins.

Books I read in 2015

Well, I did it again, more than one year without a blog post. As soon as I realized that, I decided to quickly put together my last year's book list. In 2015, I finished a book almost every week or two.  Her is the list, in no particular order:

Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

How to lie with statistics by Darrell Huff

The world according to Peter Drucker by Jack Beatty

The most important thing : uncommon sense for the thoughtful investor by Howard Marks

The Wars of the Roses : the fall of the Plantagenets and the rise of the Tudors by Dan Joses

Capital in the twenty-first century by Thomas Piketty. 

I must admit that I didn't quite get to finish this one.

Common stocks and uncommon profits and other writings  by Philip A. Fisher

The education of a value investor : my transformative quest for wealth, wisdom and enlightenment by Guy Spier

Zero to one : notes on startups, or how to build the future by Peter Thiel

The smartest kids in the world : and how they got that way / Amanda Ripley

I would highly recommend this to anyone with a schoolgoing kid or with an interest in education.

Don't count on it! : reflections on investment illusions, capitalism by John Bogle

The only three questions that still count : investing by knowing what others don't by Ken Fisher

How not to be wrong : the power of mathematical thinking / Jordan Ellenberg

The age of cryptocurrency : how bitcoin and digital money are challenging the global economic order

by Paul Vigna and Michael Casey

Soros on Soros : staying ahead of the curve / George Soros with Byron Wien and Krisztina Koenen.

Do no harm : stories of life, death, and brain surgery / Henry Marsh

This is a fascinating account of a brain surgeons life. Witty and wonderful story telling.

When to rob a bank : ... and 131 more warped suggestions and well-intended rants by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

A history of religious ideas / Mircea Eliade ; translated from the French by Willard R. Trask

The crisis of capitalist democracy / Richard A. Posner.

Business adventures: twelve classic tales from the world of Wall Street by John Brooks

Influence: the psychology of persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini.

The Pentagon's brain: an uncensored history of DARPA, America's top secret military research agency by Annie Jacobsen

How Google works / Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, with Alan Eagle.

The age of discontinuity: guidelines to our changing society / Peter F. Drucker

Business strategy: a guide to effective decision-making by Kourdi, Jeremy/The Economist

Managing in a time of great change by Peter Drucker

The Hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz

Holocracy: The new management system for a rapidly changing world by Brian Robertson

Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's partition by Nisid Hajari 

A very good summary and analysis by the another of favorite authors (William Dalrymple) can be found in a New Yorker article, the Great Divide.

Heads in Beds: a Reckless Memoir by Jacob Tomsky

Funny memoir and account of what happens behind the scenes in a hotel. 

Empire of the Moghuls: Traitors in the Shadows by Alex Rutherford

The sixth and final installment of the Empire of the Moghuls series, covering Aurangzeb.

Being Mortal: medicine and what matters in the end, by Atul Gawade.

Duty: memoirs of a secretary at war, by Robert Gates. 

This wasn't too difficult to compile, all I had to do is to go to my Kindle library and also my library receipts that I have them send electronically. I still need to compile by 2009-2013 list. Soon.

Feel free to add related suggestions in the comments.

Books that I read in 2014

 I decided to restart publishing my reading list again. I read e-books on my Kindle (both through Amazon.com as well as borrowed from the public library) and physical books, mainly borrowed from the public library, so the list is not there in one place.  I tried different ways (including safari books and goodreads.com) of keeping track of my reading, but nothing is better than keeping the list up on my blog. It is especially useful to answer questions like, "What was this book I read 5 years ago?".

Here is the 2014 list, I need to dig a bit more to retroactively post the 2009-20013 list. I have given a 1-2 line review for some of them. When I have more time, I will post a longer review.

The Little Book of Valuation: Aswath Damodaran: 

Investment Valuation: Aswath Damodaran: 

I call them the 'Little Book' and the 'Big Book'. Good, rigorous lessons on how to value investments.

Think Like a Freak: Steven Levitt/Stephen Dubner: 

I don't miss any of their books since the Freakonmics first came out. They inspire me to think differently, in unconventional ways. 

Physics of the Future: Michio Kaku:

This book was recommended to me by my friend Surojit. A fascinating book that tries to predict the next hundred years of technology and product developed, based on the science that is in the labs today. 

The News: A Users Manual (Alain De Botton) :

I downloaded this after an NPR show on this. A very good analysis and recommendations on what is a big problem for me: "How do I analyze the news?". 

Rocks Breaks Scissors (William Poundstone):

Another book that inspires me to think differently and unconventionally. 

The Intelligent Investor (Ben Graham):

I have been re-reading this every year. I don't know if it helps, though. 

The Misbehavior of Markets (Benoit Mandelbrot): 

This is probably the best book I read in 2014, but I must admit that I probably understood less than half of it. This book also challenges the conventional ways of thinking about the markets, where and how the "Random Walk Theory", and the "Efficient Market Hypothesis" breaks down and what it means for an investor. This goes to my required re-reading list.

Stress Test (Tim Geithner): 

A fascinating book that challenged some of the reservations I had about the Government response during the Financial Crisis of 2008-2009. Very well written, easy to read and gives a good, honest, account of why Mr. Geithner (as head of the New York Fed and later as Secretary of the Treasury) did what he did. 

Why Stock Markets Crash (Didier Sornette): 

This was continuation of my search for a mathematical understanding of complex system, applied to financial markets. This goes to my re-reading list too. 

Physics of Wall Street (James Weatherall): 

I first borrowed the book from the library and then bought it for my collection. A very fascinating account of the role of maths and algorithms in the financial market. 

Two States (Chetan Bhagat): The only fiction of the year. This is a pretty funny book and a good one to read before (or even after) watching the movie.

The Triple Package (Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld):

I bought this after listening to her book tour lecture on NPR. It wasn't as exciting as her previous books (Day of Empire, World on Fire), but a very bold analysis of a very senstive topic: why do some racial groups do better than others.

Being Wrong (Kathryn Schulz):

This is a fascinating way to understand how our brain works, especially how we make mistakes and why we make them. 

Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes ... (Gary Belsky/Tom Gilovich).

A similar book as "Being Wrong", but with a focus on investing mistakes. The dos and don'ts at the end of every chapter should be printed, framed, and stuck on the wall.

Average is Over (Tyler Cowen): 

This was pretty educational, it was interesting to read predictions and recommendations on what the US economy and the society of the future would look like. 

The Goal (Eliyahu Goldratt): I read this before a team off-site. This is written as fiction, and is probably the worst fiction I ever read. But it is among the best management books I ever read too. 

A History of the English Speaking Peoples (Sir Winston Churchill): 

This is the concise version, and I loved reading especially the early years: Danes, Normans, Plantagenets, Tudors to get an understanding of how we ended up with the world we have now. 

The Pity of Partition: Manto’s Life, Themes,... (Ayesha Jalal):

I follow Ayesha Jalal closely, especially her insight on South Asian History. I love how she is gradually moving from official sources to literary sources for her historical narrative. This is a depressing book too, for me, in many ways.

Stocks for the Long Run (Jeremy Siegel): 

This was on my wish-list for sometime, another book that is helping me guide my philosophy around investing.

Flash boys : a Wall Street revolt / Michael Lewis:

An eye-opening book about High Frequency Trading and its impact. Written in the delightful, narrative style that Michael Lewis is famous for.

The investor's manifesto : (William Bernstein):

Continuation of the 'investor education' series for me. Helped me think deeper on how deal with finances and how to protect my own money from myself!

Seven battles that changed the world and world history

As I was reading about the Battle of Tours in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbons, I decided to compile a list of the significant battles in human history: the results of which changed the course of history.

Historians call them 'macro historical' events. On an average, there have been one such battle every century; but every three hundred or four hundred years there have been a really major battle that changed history for at least the next half-millenia.

The seven major battles are:

The Battle of Gaugamela, 331 BC. This is the first time a western nation defeated an eastern empire. The history of the 300 hundred years before that had become the story of large eastern empires, under an absolute emperor (shah-en-shah, king-of-kings) menancing smaller western states. This set a pattern of the so called 'clash of civilzations', and a similar theme would repeat in the list. However, the impact of the Greek victory was huge: it brought the Greek wisdom and culture to all of known Asia: brought the Greeks in military and intellectual contact with the Indians. But there is an irony: it needed a Macedonian to unite the Greeks under an Empire. The Greeks, led by Alexander, went on to conquer almost all of the known world, except for India and China.

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, 9 AD. This is the battle that stopped the expansion of the Roman Empire into northern Europe.

Battle of Badr, 634 and Battle of Qadisiyah, 636. The two battles are taken together, although they are two distinct events. The first was the battle of the survival for Islam, which it did. The second was the battle of survival for Persians (Sassanian, Zoroastrians) which they didn't. These two laid the ground-work for the Islamic domination of the middle east. Historically, the major 'Eastern Empire' always used to be Persian. (Achemenid, Seleucid, Sassanian); but now the (middle) east had got an even greater spiritual power behind it. The center of gravity of the middle east power struggle went slightly west: to the Arabs. The Arabs themselves would not hold that for too long: they would eventually relinquish Asian power to the Turks (who founded Empires that would eventually rule all of Asia: through the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals) until the Europeans took over.

Battle of Tours, 732. This is the battle that stopped Arab advance into Europe. There is still a lot of debate if this was as important as many historians like Gibbons say. However, one thing is certain: the political map of Europe would look really different today had the Arabs been able to win this battle, conquer France (they already had Spain) and set their sights across the English Channel. This battle also laid the foundation of European social and political structures that would persist in Europe for almost a thousand years. The victorious army was led by Charles "Hammer" Martel, whose grandson, Charlamagne would go on to found the Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne's vision of a united Europe still inspire a lot of Europeans.

Battle of Tarain, 1191-1192. This is the battle that brought Islamic rule to India and marked the founding of the Delhi Sultanate. There had been earlier Muslim attacks on India, including the one by the Arabs that annexed Sind in 712, and the series of raids by Mehmud of Ghazni from 999 to 1025. Attacks on India from the north-west had never been new. But the previous attacks were either repelled (the Huns, for example); or the conquerors ceased to retain a separate identity for long and merged with the greater Indian body-politic (the Kushans, for example). I attribute that to the strength and vitality of the Indian culture at the time. However, this time, the Indians withdrew into a psychological shell, failed to accept the power and vitality of the new force and had a harder time 'Indianizing' the new force. However, efforts by giants like Amir Khusrau, Akbar, Guru Nanak (just to mention three) helped in creating a composite 'Hindustani' (Indian) culture, politics and religion. But the fault lines are still visible to this day. Other Asian nations have a history of converting their conquerors to their own culture. The Mongols, after conquering China, became the Chinese Yuan. The other branch of Mongols, after conquering Baghdad, adopted Islam. The Safavids (who were originally Central Asian Turks), became Persian.

Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588. This marked the end of Spanish domination and the beginning of English (remember, England and Scotland were still two separate kingdoms) domination in the world stage. The English could not have a built the Empire without beating the Spanish. If the English had not won, the U.S and Canada would probably be French or Spanish speaking, for example.

The Battle of Stalingrad: 1942-43. The second world war had a number of turning points: the battle of Britain, the battle for the Atlantic, the battle of El-Alamein, the battle of Midway, the battle at Kohima. But none comes close to the importance of the Battle of Stalingrad. This not only turned the tide of the second world war in the favor of the Allies, it marked the beginning of the Soviet Empire. Between two evils, the world chose the lesser. However, the courage, the valor, the commitment and the sacrifice of the Russian people does not have that many parallels in human history. The world owes a lot to the Russian people for standing up against Nazi barbarism and prevailing over them.

There is a pattern here, not of a 'clash of civilizations' type; but a more subtle fight between different ideologies to govern the human race. Different periods have marked the ascendancy of different governing ideals, these battles mark those turning points.

The other significant battles, in chronological order (includes the six mentioned above, for the sake of continuity)

The Battle of Marathon, 490 BC.

Battle of the Allia, 390 BC

The Battle of Gaugamela, 331 BC. Mentioned earlier.

The Battle of Cannae, 216 BC

The Battle of the Metaurus, 207 BC

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, 9 AD

Notable mentions: Battle of Carrhae, 53BC

Middle Ages (100AD - 1600AD)

Battle of Adrianople, 378

Battle of Chalons, 451

Battle of Badr, 634 and Battle of Qadisiyah, 636

Battle of Tours, 732 AD, Tours, France

Battle of Talas river, 751 AD

Battle of Bach Dang river, 938

The Battle of Hastings, 1066

The battle/siege of Antioch 1097-1098

Battle of Hattin, 1187

Battle of Tarain, 1191-1192

The Battle of Baghdad in 1258

Mongol attacks on Japan:

Tenochtitlan, 1521

First Battle of Panipat, 1526

Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588

Siege of Vienna, 1683

Notable mentions: Battle of Lechfeld, 955. Fall of Constantinople, 1453, Battle of Kosovo, 1483, Siege of Rhodes, 1522. Russo-Kazan wars 1552. Battle of Swally, 1612.

Modern World (1700 AD - present)

Battle of Poltava, 1709

The Third Battle of Panipat. Panipat, India, 1761: Marathas defeated by Afghans. It killed any chances of a Maratha resurgence, paved the way for the British domination of India.

Battle of Saratoga, 1777

Battle of Valmy, 1792

Gettysburg, 1863 (and Sherman's capture of Atlanta, 1864)

The Battle of Stalingrad: 1942-43

zikr-e-watan (Remembrance of my homeland): by Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

The Maqtaa from a beautiful Ghazal by Faiz Ahmed Faiz: (One of my favorite modern Urdu poets).

"Dayaar-e-ghair mein mahram agar nahin koi

To 'Faiz' zikr-e-watan apne ru-ba-ru hi sahi"

It roughly translates to:

"I dont have anyone of my own in this foreign place, but if I can't talk about my country with anyone, I could still talk to myself"

Lucky guy: at least he knew which one is the foreign land and which one is his country.

The Books I have read in the last year (Apr 2008-Mar 2009)

Descent Into Chaos, by Ahmed Rashid. A pretty interesting account of the American War in Afghanistan, with very good historical background. I would also recommend the book 'The Dust of Empire' for a wider geo-political background.
The Federalist Papers, by Hamilton/Madison/Jay.
White Mughals, by William Dalrymple. I had blogged about it earlier.
The Third Chimpanzee, by Jared Diamond. A gripping anthropological account of the darker sides of humans and how it can bring about the destruction of the entire race.
The Khyber Pass, Paddy Docherty. The history of the Khyber Pass from ancient Persian-Indian Empires up to the present.
A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. A nicely written novel, but left me depressed for a week.
Oracle Bones, by Peter Hessler. 'A journey between China's Past and Future'. It gave me a pretty good insight (through western eyes) of the Chinese nation and culture. I really liked the way the narrative goes from the present to the past and back to the present, again and again.
Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things, Gary Geddes. A fascinating journey from Kabul to Chiapas, through Afghanistan, Pakistan, China (through the Chinese wild west: Kasghar/Urumqi), the Pacific up to Central America.
The Complete Yes Prime Minister, Jonathon Lynn/Antony Jay. The book version of the brilliant and hilarious BBC Series.
A Random Walk down Wall Street, by Burton Malkiel.
The New Asian Hemisphere, Kishore Mahbubani.
When Markets Collide, Mohammed El-Erian.
Flip!, by Peter Sheahan. 'How to turn everything you know on its head'.
A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle.
Swami Vivekananda Reader. A collection of speeches and essays by Swami Vivekananda.
Plus, ongoing reading of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Sir Winston Churchill's memoirs.