In 701 B.C. the Assyrian empire was in its ascendancy. It had already vanquished the kingdom of Israel to the north including the capital at Samaria. It then prepared an assault on Judah and its capital at Jerusalem.
But in one of those significant events that changes the course of world history, Assyria was repelled. Jerusalem was saved until 586 B.C. when the Babylonians sacked the city, forcing its leadership class into exile.
Henry Aubin, in a major feat of scholarship, determines that Jerusalem was aided by a Kushite army from Africa which had marched northeast from the Nile valley. While the Bible attributes the Assyrian retreat to an angel and secular commentators cite pestilence, Aubin, in a meticulously documented work, demonstrates that an alliance with the African nation of Kush bolstered Jerusalem’s defences.
Kush, also known as Nubia, was located in what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan. A monarchy that existed for more than 1000 years, from 900 B.C. to A.D. 350, Kushites held sway over Egypt from 712 B.C. to about 660 B.C. Of Egypt’s 31 dynasties, this, the 25th Dynasty, is the only one that all scholars agree, was black.
The commander of the Kushite expeditionary force was Taharqa (or as the Bible calls him Tirhakah). This Kushite prince, who had his own interests in halting Assyrian expansion, likely caught the aggressors by surprise as they prepared their siege of Jerusalem.
Aubin offers a thrilling military history and a stirring political analysis of the ancient world. He also sees the event as influential over the centuries.
The Kushite rescue of the Hebrew kingdom of Judah enabled the fragile, war-ravaged state to endure, to nurse itself back to economic and demographic health, and allowed the Hebrew religion, Yahwism, to evolve within the next several centuries into Judaism. Thus emerged the monotheistic trunk supporting Christianity and Islam.
Praise for Mr. Selden’s Map of China:
“Brook is a true practitioner of the broad, rich and currently endangered concept of the humanities… reads like a perfect day at the library.” —The Globe and Mail
“a fast-moving, conversational narrative, which flies by before you realise you have just been guided through some of the more esoteric aspects of Chinese science or folklore. It is punctuated by telling personal anecdotes and trenchant observations on how the past continues to shape the present—especially when dealing with China.”—Literary Review (full review)
“King James II is there, witnessing a food fight at the Bodleian in 1687. Ben Jonson appears. So, too, does Shen Fuzong, a Catholic convert and the first Chinese man to visit Oxford. The story is full of Chinese pirates and English adventurers. Most fascinating of all, though, is Selden himself”—The Economist
“Alternating between early modern and modern history, England and China, biography, science and culture, Brook holds us spellbound, just as he did in his earlier compelling series of interwoven tales of China and the west, Vermeer’s Hat (2008).”—Financial Times (Full Review)
Bloomsbury US 2013
Anansi CAD 2013
Profile UK 2014
Ohta Shuppen Japan 2015
Mr. Selden’s Map of China
Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer
A work of history, biography, cartography, and literary mystery, Mr. Selden’s Map of China unlocks the secrets behind a Chinese map four centuries old, long lost in a library basement, and paints an unexpected portrait of the world just as global trade changed everything.
The map arrived at Oxford’s Bodleian Library in 1659, part of a bequest from John Selden, a fiddler’s son who became a member of parliament, was twice a political prisoner under two different kings, and rose to be arguably the greatest constitutional lawyer and Oriental scholar of the 17th century. The map excited a bit of interest at the time, but was eventually consigned to the bowels of the library until an inquisitive reader called it up four years ago.
When Brook saw it, he realized that the Selden map, as it is called, was “a puzzle that had to be solved”: an exceptional artifact so unsettlingly modern-looking it could almost have been a forgery. But it was genuine, and what it can tell us is astonishing. It shows China as a part of East Asia, not cut off from the world but an actively participating in the embryonic network of global trade that fuelled the rise of Europe — and now powers China’s ascent. The map raises many questions: How did John Selden acquire it? Where did it come from? Who imagined that the world looked like this? What are those lines drawn across the oceans? And most importantly, what can it tell us about how the world was changing at the moment it was drawn?
Like a cartographic detective, Brook takes his readers across the map in search of answers. From Japan to Java, from China to India, Brook follows the clues on the map to tease out the trade routes that came to define this crucial period in China’s history and remake the world. Nick Thran in The Globe and Mail praises Brook for putting on “the hard-boiled, whodunnit fedora when it suits the narrative” and then taking it off to be “a true practitioner of the broad, rich and currently endangered concept of the humanities.” Another reviewer writes: “This book is a gem. Schedule it for your gift list this Christmas and give it to yourself as well. It’s a mystery with a difference. Nobody gets killed (well, hardly anyone) and nobody gets robbed or attacked (well, relatively few).”
Timothy Brook is one of Canada’s, indeed the world’s, pre-eminent historians of China and a masterful storyteller. The award-winning author and editor of over a dozen books on China, he reached a popular audience with Vermeer’s Hat, which the Guardian called “a brilliant attempt to make us understand the reach and breadth of the first global age.” Formerly the Shaw Chair in Chinese Studies at Oxford, he is now the Republic of China Chair in History at the University of British Columbia.
