If you have ideas Charles, I'm very happy to hear them. I just don't know what our connections with the Indian diaspora in the UK are right now and whether they'd be interested in doing something on these records, rather than preferring something on their own culture. You're welcome to propose ideas and to suggest people we might work with. I'm all ears. :)
John On 8 February 2017 at 13:52, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com> wrote: > > On 08 February 2017 at 12:46 John Lubbock <john.lubb...@wikimedia.org.uk> > wrote: > > There's quite a lot of interest in this subject also because of the BBC > series Taboo, which paints the East India Company in a pretty bad light > that is quite believable given what is known about them > > I think Taboo is great, at a graphic novel sort of level. People should > know, though, that the East India Company was run by a board of 25 > directors, rather than Jonathan Pryce doing a lot of swearing. > > Among interesting employees were John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Love Peacock. > > If anybody wants a somewhat long but illuminating read on them, I'd very > much suggest the historian William Dalrymple's piece in the Graun > <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-company-original-corporate-raiders> > from a couple of years ago. > > I don't know that Dalrymple is taken seriously as a historian. I recently > enjoyed In the Footsteps of Stamford Raffles, by Nigel Barley, which > complements Taboo in its own way. > > > Personally, I do think that if possible we should look at the possibility > of bringing this collection onto Wikimedia projects, but I don't think it > would be an appropriate project for trying to work with the Indian > Wikimedia chapter or with the Indian diaspora here. I do think we should > look at how we could do that in future with subject matter which is less > contentious though. > > For heavens sake, WP has the mechanisms for dealing with contentious > subjects. Communications being what they were, until the invention of the > telegraph, there was a big disjunction between what the Company could get > done from London; and what actually went on in South and East Asia. And > what UCL are working on for the West Indies, someone should attempt for the > East Indies. > > Charles > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > wikimediau...@wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk >
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
