Welcome to Just Between Us, the podcast with all of the answers, some of the time.

A bit of a different thing going on this week.

You've been immature and you've lied.

And now you're trying to turn it on me and manipulate me and gaslight me.

I was trying to manipulate you.

Diana, you would be chucking their clothes out of the window.

I know, I'd be like, are you joking?

I don't know. I guess you'd have to ask.

Someone that has sex.

Someone that has sex.

And remember, it's just between us.

Welcome to the History Extra podcast.

Fascinating historical conversations from BBC History Magazine and BBC History Revealed.

Asia has long enthralled people in the West.

With explorers and military expeditions setting out in search of wealth, wisdom, and the chance to explore what they saw as a strange new world.

Christopher Harding is the author of a new book on this subject, The Light of Asia, and he spoke to Matt Elton about this enduring fascination with India, China and Japan,

and the ways in which it shaped the relationship between East and West into the 21st century.

So, Chris, your new book is called The Light of Asia, and we'll get onto some of the meanings

behind that title in a bit.

But before we do, I wanted to start by asking you what it is you're exploring in the book

and what the sort of geographical and chronological range of it is, I suppose.

Yeah, it's a good question. I think in retrospect, it's insanely ambitious, probably.

...