History

My interview is at Renovatio concerning my forthcoming article on equality in the Qur’an, which I wrote in honor of the Black Lives Matter movement. The audio is embedded here: Renovatio’s notes: “God’s creativity is seen as an expression of the divine will and those blessed with insight can perceive it as such, and perhaps […]

African-Americans

When You Lift from the Bottom, Everyone Rises: Have We Entered America’s Third Era of Reconstruction?

Liz Theoharis

( Tomdispatch.com) – West Virginia, a state first established in defiance of slavery, has recently become ground zero in the fight for voting rights. In an early June op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin vowed to maintain the Senate filibuster, while opposing the For the People Act, a bill to expand voting […]

Climate Change

What the Ottoman Empire can teach us about the consequences of climate change – and how drought can uproot peoples and fuel warfare

The Conversation

By Andrea Duffy | – In the late 16th century, hundreds of bandits on horseback stormed through the countryside of Ottoman Anatolia raiding villages, inciting violence and destabilizing the sultan’s grip on power Four hundred years later and a few hundred miles away in the former Ottoman territory of Syria, widespread protests escalated into a […]

History

If You Love Our Country, Don’t Ban Its History

Jill Richardson

( Otherwords.org) – Across the country, several states have passed or introduced bills that ban teaching “critical race theory.” Oklahoma’s governor just signed one. Arizona’s governor just vetoed one. Texas and North Carolina are moving ahead with similar bills. I’d like to set aside the fact that the people most upset about critical race theory […]

Asian-Americans

Japanese American soldiers in World War II fought the Axis for the U.S. abroad and racial prejudice back at home

The Conversation

By Susan H. Kamei | – Imagine being forced from your home by the government, being imprisoned in a detention camp under armed guards and behind barbed wire – and then being required to join the military to fight for the nation that had locked up you and your family. That’s what happened in a […]

Archaeology

Were Humanity’s Oldest Monumental Religious Sites Erected in NW Saudi Arabia? 1,000 ‘Rectangles’ Older than Stonehenge

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Hugh Thomas and a team of Australian researchers have just published a groundbreaking article in the journal Antiquity describing their research into the mysterious “Rectangles” (mustatīl) dotting Northwest Arabia. This region lies due south of Israel-Palestine and Jordan. Rectangles. h/t ‘Antiquity.’ The Rectangles date from roughly 7,500 years before present, […]

Archaeology

The Catholic Reconquista in Spain outlawed Islam in 1502, but Secret Muslims kept their culture — and Cuisine — Going

The Conversation

By Aleks Pluskowski, Guillermo García-Contreras Ruiz, and Marcos García García | – Granada, in southern Spain’s Andalusia region, was the final remnant of Islamic Iberia known as al-Andalus – a territory that once stretched across most of Spain and Portugal. In 1492, the city fell to the Catholic conquest. In the aftermath, native Andalusians, who […]

Cold War

Why the Suez Canal, now blocked, is so Important to the Global Economy and World History

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The super-super tanker Ever Given is stuck kitty-corner in the Suez Canal, having apparently run up on a sand bar. It is blocking dozens of other ships from going through the canal. The ship, one of the largest in the world, is a quarter of a mile long and can […]

History

A New History of the Prophet of Islamﷺ – Juan Cole interviewed by Hamza Yusuf

Juan Cole

Juan Cole interviewed by Hamza Yusuf at Renovatio about the book: Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires Available at Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor And Hachette And Barnes and Noble And Amazon Renovatio writes: Can those working in the field of modern academic historical method contribute to new ways of viewing an […]