History

By Michelle Hartman, McGill University | – Wherever you spend your summer, allow yourself to be transported to Syria and immerse yourself in the world of Shahla Ujayli’s sweeping historical novel Summer with the Enemy. The ongoing devastation of the war that began in 2011 has brought Syria to the world’s attention. Reading a Syrian […]

Colonialism

Trump joins Aaron Burr and Jefferson Davis as Former High Office-Holder Investigated for Sedition

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Carol D. Leonnig, Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, and Spencer S. Hsu at the Washington Post got the scoop that the Department of Justice has for some time been investigating Donald John Trump for possible charges in connection with his campaign to overturn the 2020 election results. (I call him Donald […]

Feminism

Abortion decision cherry-picks history – when the US Constitution was ratified, women had much more autonomy over abortion decisions than during 19th century

The Conversation

Maurizio Valsania, Università di Torino | – Justice Samuel Alito appears spellbound by the 19th century. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the decision Alito wrote overruling 50 years of constitutional protection for women’s right to get an abortion, he deploys arguments that are based on several historical precedents. He uses the phrase “history […]

Archaeology

Does Megadrought of the 500s in Yemen help Explain the Rise of Islam?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new article in the journal Science gives evidence for a prolonged dry spell in the kingdom of Himyar (which now would comprise Yemen, southern Saudi Arabia and Oman) in the 500s. Since the Prophet Muhammad is traditionally said to have been born in 567 or 570, any new information […]

African-Americans

Juneteenth celebrates just one of the United States’ 20 emancipation days – and the history of how emancipated people were kept unfree needs to be remembered, too

The Conversation

By Kris Manjapra, Tufts University | – The actual day was June 19, 1865, and it was the Black dockworkers in Galveston, Texas, who first heard the word that freedom for the enslaved had come. There were speeches, sermons and shared meals, mostly held at Black churches, the safest places to have such celebrations. The […]

History

Draft Overturning Roe v. Wade Quotes Infamous Witch Trial Judge With Long-Discredited Ideas on Rape

ProPublica

By Ken Armstrong ( ProPublica ) – When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in a draft opinion obtained and published this week by Politico, detailed his justifications for overturning Roe v. Wade, he invoked a surprising name given the case’s subject. In writing about abortion, a matter inextricably tied to a woman’s control over […]

Antisemitism

Israeli Authorities still haven’t taken sides on Ukraine Invasion, but Denounce Russia for saying Hitler was Jewish

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli and Ukrainian governments have lambasted the Russian Federation for remarks of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a video interview with an Italian TV station. Lavrov defended Moscow’s creepy allegation that the Ukrainian government is dominated by Nazis, even though the president, Volodomyr Zelensky, is Jewish. Lavrov said that […]

Archaeology

Palestinians: Bust of 4500-yr.-old Goddess Anat found in Gaza “attests the Depth of Ancient Palestinian Civilization”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A farmer plowing his land in Khan Younis, the Gaza Strip, recently found the head of a statuette of the ancient Levantine goddess Anat from 4,500 years ago, AFP reports. Everything in Israel/Palestine is political, including, and maybe especially, archeology. In 2500 BCE the ancient Levantine civilization, sometimes called “proto-Canaanite,” […]

Climate Crisis

Colonialism: why leading Climate Scientists have finally acknowledged its Link with Climate Change

The Conversation

By Harriet Mercer, University of Cambridge | – The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)‘s sixth and latest report on the impact of global warming on our planet, published earlier this month, reiterates many of its predecessors’ warnings: chiefly that climate change threatens global disaster if we do not act to avert it. Yet it […]