History

(By Lewis Lapham) [This essay will appear in “Revolution,” the Spring 2014 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly. This slightly adapted version is posted at TomDispatch.com with the kind permission of that magazine.] In case of rain, the revolution will take place in the hall.— Erwin Chargaff For the last several years, the word “revolution” has been hanging […]

Africa

A World built on Slavery

contributors

(By Greg Grandin) Many in the United States were outraged by the remarks of conservative evangelical preacher Pat Robertson, who blamed Haiti’s catastrophic 2010 earthquake on Haitians for selling their souls to Satan. Bodies were still being pulled from the rubble — as many as 300,000 died — when Robertson went on TV and gave […]

History

Manufactured Wars, Manufactured Military History

contributors

(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 […]