History

by Yoram Meital | (Informed Comment) | – – The toppling of a regime, whether by civil insurrection or military coup, invariably gives rise to a fierce struggle over the lineaments of the new order. This transition phase is the moment of truth in every revolution. It is informed by a collapse of the justice […]

History

What Everyone Should Know about the Prophet Muhammad

contributors

Steve Scholl | (Spirituality and Health Magazine) | – – Muhammad has become a strangely unifying figure in America—able to get conservative Glenn Beck and liberal Bill Maher to agree that Islam is a backward, medieval religion and a threat to all civilization. Both are making a common, fundamentalist mistake. I was recently driving on […]

Arab World

Shadow Wars: The Secret Struggle for the Middle East

contributors

By Christopher M. Davidson | (Informed Comment) | – – Swept along on a tidal wave of euphoria, by spring 2011 many had cautiously begun to believe that the wave of Arab uprisings that had already managed to topple the regimes of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak would herald the dawn of […]

Colonialism

60 Years later, Suez Crisis looks a lot like Iraq War

contributors

By Nigel Ashton | (The Conversation) | – – Does history repeat itself? Never perfectly or precisely, but some of the parallels between Anthony Eden’s handling of the 1956 Suez Crisis and Tony Blair’s role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq are worth pondering. In both cases prime ministerial decision-making dictated the course of British […]

History

Return of Virulent Nationalism: how language is being used to mark national borders

contributors

Mario Saraceni | (The Conversation) | – – According to a series of newspapers, immigrants will apparently change the English language in Britain beyond repair over the next 50 years. The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express have all run alarming stories on this topic. Language will change “because there are so […]

Colonialism

Colonial Slow Genocide: Palestinian Leader Abbas asks Britain for “Balfour” Apology

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Mahmoud Abbas, president of Palestine, is asking Britain for an apology for its having in 1917 issued the infamous “Balfour Declaration.” He won’t get one. The difference between the North Atlantic countries and the rest of the world is that the former are still committed to […]

Archaeology

Inside ISIL’s looted antiquities trade

contributors

By Fiona Rose-Greenland | (The Conversation) | – – For excavators – archaeologists, but also looters like the [so-called] Islamic State, or ISIL – the opportunity for discovery in modern Iraq and Syria is dazzling. The countries lie within the Fertile Crescent, a broad swath of land stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the Zagros […]

History

Top 3 sources of Immigration to US every Decade since 1820 (Animated Map)

contributors

Metrocosm | (Animated video) | – – “From 1920 to 2013, 79 million people obtained lawful permanent resident status in the United States. This map visualizes all of them based on their prior country of residence. The brightness of a country corresponds to its total migration to the U.S. at the given time. 1 dot […]

Colonialism

Architects of Failure: 100 years of Sykes-Picot

contributors

By Akil N. Awan | ( History Today) | – – How an agreement signed in 1916 became shorthand for western treachery, greed and the impact of colonial machinations on the lives of local peoples. One of the most striking observations, when comparing a map of Europe with one of the Middle East or North […]