ANTB19H3 Lecture Notes - Abali, Critical Role, Eric Wolf
Document Summary
In an antique land by amitav ghosh: the story of ben yiju relates to the idea that history can be lost. Of course, he didn"t mean people did not have a history; rather, that slaves, like ben yiju, don"t typically leave behind historical records, and are not typically the subject of historical accounts. The geniza was the place where all these lost documents about the day-to-day lives of common merchants etc were dumped for centuries, and its discovery offered a glimpse into the lives of people forgotten in historical accounts. It also showed us that the transnational links between people from diverse places existed long before european empires colonized most of the world. Ben yiju was a simple slave from india who had a relationship with merchants from egypt. Ghosh clearly identifies with the slave: he felt a sense of shared history, a certain sense of entitlement to visit egypt and to carry out field work.
