Confluences: Forgotten Histories from East and West

Ilija Trojanow and Ranjit Hoskote

Yoda Press, 224 pages, R295

In defiance of the current tide of national and cultural neo-tribalism, the authors argue that the lifeblood of culture is confluence. No culture has ever been pure, no tradition self-enclosed, no identity monolithic. Following the journeys of stories, ideas, people and songs, they trace the umbilical connections between Europe and Asia, Zoroastrianism and Christianity, Western revolutionary thought and the annihilatory politics of Jihad and Hindutva.