Beijing raised its profile at the annual Shanghai Cooperation Council summit of non-Western countries just by providing a forum. London (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) […]
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Harvard confirms antique book is bound in human skin
Harvard University scientists have confirmed that a 19th century French treatise in its libraries is bound in human skin, Harvard University said this week, after a bevvy of scientific testing. Arsene Houssaye’s “Des destinees de l’ame” (On the destiny…
“In your Wild Dreams, what are you Looking for?” Rubaiyat of Jalalu’d-Din Rumi
Courtesy Anthony A. Lee, here are four poems from his and the late Amin Banani’s translation of the quatrains of the great Sufi mystic Mevlana […]
Georgia Courthouse is shot up by Sovereign Citizen after GOP backs Bundy, Open Carry
By Juan Cole That didn’t take long. The Georgia GOP rushed into law an ‘open carry’ provision in April allowing people to tote around guns […]
Can Obama Make good on his Pledge to overturn Citizens United with a Constitutional Amendment?
In his new book, Ken Vogel claims that President Barack Obama told Democratic donors he believes he is in a good position to pass a constitutional amendment to repeal Citizens United. The book, entitled “Big Money: 2.5 Billion Dollars, One Suspicious…
Iran’s Rouhani pulls a Pope Francis: ‘Let People choose own path to Heaven’
By Golnaz Esfandiari Twenty-five years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's death, the clerical establishment ushered in by the Islamic republic's founding father is at odds over […]
Does our and Obama’s Paralysis on Global Warming come from American Exceptionalism?
By William Espinosa President Obama’s proposal to modestly curb carbon emissions from power plants is – if carried out—a serious one. But opposition was immediate, […]
On D-Day: Remembering the Muslim Troops who Fought the Axis
By Juan Cole One of the frustrations for a world historian is the unyieldingly parochial vision of the North Atlantic common among journalists and even […]
Facial Hair, Patriotism and the Enemy in American History
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 […]
Tiananmen still Under Lockdown after all These Years
By Philip Cunningham I approached the Square from Qianmen which back in the old days of the Qing Dynasty was the traditional gate into the […]