History

(By Nick Turse) It’s 2053 — 20 years since you needed a computer, tablet, or smart phone to go online. At least, that’s true in the developed world: you know, China, India, Brazil, and even some parts of the United States. Cybernetic eye implants allow you to see everything with a digital overlay. And once […]

Featured

Camel Bones and Jerusalem: Archeology Shows Bible written Late, Full of Errors

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) A new paper by Israeli archeologists Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef, [pdf] posted at the University of Tel Aviv web site , is bad news for biblical literalists and far right wing Israeli nationalists who use the Bible for support. The Hebrew Bible’s oldest chapters– Genesis, Exodus, and even Judges purport to […]

art and photography

Photo of the Day: Women in Mosul, 1902

Juan Cole

From M. E. Hume-Griffith and A. Hume, Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia: An Account of an Englishwoman’s Eight Years’ Residence Amongst the Women of the East (1909). The authors note that these are Christian women, presumably Iraqi Chaldeans, and they alleged that Muslim women declined at that time to be photographed. Since […]

History

La Follette’s Anti-Imperialism is Still Controversial at the Wall Street Journal

contributors

(By Richard Drake) On 11 January 2014, Lewis Gould reviewed my book, The Education of an Anti-Imperialist: Robert La Follette and U.S. Expansion, in The Wall Street Journal. One of the chapters in particular, “La Follette Discovers the Middle East,” inspired claims and charges by the reviewer that I answered in a letter published by […]

Bashar al-Assad

Don’t Break up Syria: WW I-Style Imperial Divide & Rule is a Failure

contributors

(By Christopher Dekki) Since the beginning of this terrible conflict in Syria, I have been closely listening to people’s reactions to the violence and devastation occurring there. What is astonishing is how quickly Syria transformed from a place of relative obscurity to a topic of constant discussion among so many. Even more astonishing, the solutions […]

art and photography

Street Kebab Chef in Mosul, Iraq, 1903 (Photo of the Day)

Juan Cole

From M. E. Hume-Griffith and A. Hume, Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia: An Account of an Englishwoman’s Eight Years’ Residence Amongst the Women of the East (1909).

History

Yezidi Kurdish Family in Syria, 1899 (Photo of the Day)

Juan Cole

A Kurdish Yezidi Family of the Mount Simeon district of northern Syria, at a village near Aleppo, circa 1899 (From Gertrude Bell, Syria: The Desert and the Sown, 1908) The Kurdish population of northeast Syria is roughly 10 percent of the population. At that time, there were about 3 million people in what is now […]

History

Chief Rabbi of Yazd, Iran, 1903 (Photo of the Day)

Juan Cole

The Chief Rabbi of Yazd, Iran, in the center Iran’s population in 1900 was around 10 million. There were roughly 100,000 Jews in Iran at that time. Lord Curzon wrote in the late nineteenth century of different treatment of Jews in different parts of the country: “In Isfahan, where they are said to be 3,700 […]

art and photography

A Christian Bride of Mosul, Iraq, 1903 (Photo of the Day)

Juan Cole

Caption: A Mosul Bride: The girl in the centre of the picture is a Christian bride decked out in her wedding costume. The gold coins, necklaces, and girdle are her dowry. From M. E. Hume-Griffith and A. Hume, Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia: An Account of an Englishwoman’s Eight Years’ Residence Amongst […]