History

First film footage taken of Ottoman Palestine (Lumiere Bros.), in 1896. Palestine 1896 h/t William Dalrymple Kemal Karpat wrote that according to the Ottoman Census of 1893, the population of most of what is now Palestine (excluding northern areas then attached to Beirut) was as follows: 371,959 Muslims 42,689 Christians 9,000 Jews This does not […]

Algeria

Algerian Soccer/ Football and the Black Box of French History

contributors

By Francis Ghilès Senior Research Fellow, CIDOB When Algeria qualified for the knockout stage of the World Cup by winning against Russia, the Algerian press celebrated their team’s qualification as the greatest victory ever. In France large street celebrations were accompanied by the usual firecrackers and Algerian flags and were followed by clashes between groups […]

Featured

The Debacle of the Caliphates: Why al-Baghdadi’s Grandiosity doesn’t Matter

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Ibrahim al-Badri, a run-of-the-mill Sunni Iraqi cleric, gained a degree from the University of Baghdad at a time when pedagogy there had collapsed because of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship and international sanctions. After 2003 he took the name Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and turned to a vicious and psychopathic violence involving blowing up […]

Christians

How Reagan subverted the meaning of D-Day & the New Deal of the Greatest Generation

Juan Cole

The following is an excerpt from Harvey J. Kaye’s The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great (Simon & Schuster, 2014). On June 6, 1984, President Ronald Reagan went to Normandy, France, to speak at events…

Featured

Facial Hair, Patriotism and the Enemy in American History

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Media Matters for America put together a collage of Fox Cable News commentators smearing the father of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl as having a Taliban-like beard and maybe even being a Taliban sympathizer. Thanks to MM4A for the Laura Ingram clip in which she says that if he weren’t so light-skinned he could […]

Civil Rights

Historian who Made History: Vincent Harding, Civil Rights Pioneer and King Confidant

contributors

(By Ken Butigan, Waging Nonviolence) Historian by profession and relentless nonviolent advocate by calling, Vincent Gordon Harding died on Monday, May 19, at the age of 83. The author of a series of books on the civil rights movement — which he called the Southern Freedom movement — he not only wrote history, but also […]

History

A People’s History of Muslims in the United States

Juan Cole

(By Alison Kysia) When I teach history related to Islam or Muslims in the United States, I begin by asking students what names they associate with these terms. The list is consistent year after year: Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, and Muhammad Ali. All of these individuals have affected U.S. history in significant ways. If we […]

Arab World

Color Video of Progress in 1950s Iraq before the US Got involved in It

Juan Cole

British Pathé: Ageless Iraq Reel 1 (1950-1959) Blurb: “Reel 1. Directed by Graham Wallace. Cameraman – Reg Cavender. Editor – Jocelyn Jackson. Sound – W.S. Bland and George Newberry. L/S of aeroplane flying over countryside. Various aerial shots of Iraq and its rivers. C/U of a shepherd looking up at the sky. Aerial shot of […]

History

Mussolini buys Crowds during visit to Libya (1937) – Historical Video of the Day

Juan Cole

Italy ruled Libya from 1911 until midway through WW II, with the fascist years being especially harsh. This newsreel gives a sense of how the Italian colonial administration regimented the population (likely with a combination of bribes and threats) for a spectacle during brutal dictator Benito Mussolini’s visit to his colony in the late 1930s. […]