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Russia and the Race for the Arctic

… Russia's claims to the Arctic in 2007. This time, everyone took notice. Miles below the site of his previous … two others to the Arctic seabed, the first time humans had done so at the North Pole. There, 14,000 feet (2.5 miles) … understand why there is all this noise in the international community. If anyone wants to plant a flag down there, …
Employees operating a testing center at the Walmart Supercenter in Elizabethville, PA, August, 2020.

Licenses to Ill: Health Passes and Surveillance

… A common response to the COVID-19 epidemic worldwide has been … PA, August, 2020. Although experts have cautioned there is much we still do not know about immunity … places. But, as with most seemingly novel practices, this one has a long and complicated history. Health passes will …

Who Owns the Nile? Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia’s History-Changing Dam

… surreptitiously acquired from Stratfor, the Texas security company, revealing Egyptian and Sudanese plans to build an … also brought the brown silt that nourished the delta, one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, … The Nile River historian Robert O. Collins reports that “no one passed through this primordial bog” until 1841. Not …

The Hajj and Europe

… to Mecca, is a central ritual of the Muslim faith and one of the largest and oldest gatherings of people in the … and the site of God’s revelations to him—Muslims fulfill one of the five pillars of their faith. Location of Mecca … safety, and how much states should subsidize the ritual—is complicated. In many countries, demand for hajj visas …
Cover of Guantánamo, USA The Untold History of America's Cuban Outpost by Stephen Irving Max Schwab.

Guantanamo For Beginners

Review of Guantanamo, USA: The Untold History of America's Cuban Outpost, by Stephen Irving Max Schwab (University Press of Kansas, 2009)
… Guantanamo Bay has become one the most infamous places on earth.  In the United … to own a piece of Cuba, and how that naval base has functioned over the past century. Stephen Irving Max Schwab seeks …

Taiwan's 2008 Elections: A New Direction for the 'Other China'?

… administration to a single-party system ( yidang duda or "one party rule") similar to the sort that had preceded the … is not quite as large as Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined. It is also the second-most densely populated … being a Mainlander, he is a "New Taiwanese." Not everyone accepts this definition of "Taiwanese," to be sure. I …

Are Women People? The Equal Rights Amendment Then and Now

… 40 years to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) . Proponents believe this surprise victory signals that the ERA has a renewed chance to become the 28 th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. To be … and sexual orientation. At the outset, the ERA was envisioned as a way to remove barriers for educated and …
PPI Drug Testing by Cambodia, PPI Network, CC BY 2.0, Flickr

Pro Sports Can Run, But They Can’t Hide

… The chair of the House Government Reform Committee, Tom Davis, House Democrat Henry Waxman and Senate … a moral McCarthyism that seems to be sweeping Washington. One polling firm, the Rasmussen Reports, found that only 22 … become involved in the problems of baseball. According to one 74-year-old man from Arizona, “They got a lot more …
Cover of The Invisible Bridge by Rick Perlstein

There Are No Heroes Here: American Malaise in the Seventies

Review of The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, by Rick Perlstein (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014)
… Bridge, Rick Perlstein—a journalist by profession, but one with a keen eye toward the historical—completes his trilogy chronicling the rise of what has been … and turns along the way are more than worth the ride by anyone interested in high-level politics and intrigue as well …
A gay march in Minneapolis on June 30, 1973, the first in the country with the headline "Gay Pride".

Homosexuality and Prohibition

… of being on the receiving end of anti-gay protests. One protester — the Rev. Fred Phelps of Topeka — went so far … preparations were being made in Wyoming for the trial of one of the men accused of killing Matthew Shepard — a gay … protection for gays?  Perhaps the same impulse — the same combination of religious fervor and fear of social collapse …

The Secular Roots of a Religious Divide in Contemporary Iraq

… some political pundits conclude, negotiations cannot overcome divine principles dictating distinct worldviews that … support from the Sunni Islamic State. And yet, more than one year after his appointment, the Islamic State has yet to … two factions supported two different rulers. Some championed the appointment of Hassan, a son of Ali and so a …
William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States.

Zealous Moderates: Barack Obama and William Howard Taft

… season brings a new round of presidential analogies and comparisons. Two years into his presidency, Barack Obama has … Truman, John F. Kennedy and even Dwight D. Eisenhower. Opponents have latched on to Jimmy Carter and Woodrow Wilson. … and George H.W. Bush as important role models. But there's one president whose name has rarely been mentioned: William …
The four women Supreme Court Justices: Sandra Day O'Connor, Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Elena Kagan. O'Connor is not wearing a robe because she is retired from the Court.

Should Catholic Justices Recuse Themselves on Certain Cases?

… into a two-thirds majority. She will in fact be replacing one of the two Protestants who remained on the court. This dramatic change in the composition of the Supreme Court can be traced to the … to achieve equality. It reflects our better selves, the ones who want to make up for decades of prejudice and …
Liu Bang, or Emperor Gaozu of Han

Liu Bang, from Peasant Rebel to Emperor

… Liu Bang also became the symbolic father of the Han people. One fifth of the world’s population now self-identifies as “Han Chinese.” His legacy, then, is a multifaceted one. In the popular imagination in the West, the present-day … of China’s greatest imperial dynasty was, like Mao, a commoner. As with many dynastic founders, it is difficult to …
Nationalist police forces in Barcelona preventing voting in the October 1, 2017 referendum.

Top Ten Origins: Catalonia (Catalunya) and Spain

… ten historical moments help us understand the long and complicated relationships Catalunya has had with Spain as … the Arab invaders back, maintaining the region as a buffer zone between the Franks and Muslims. In 801, Louis the Pious, … Kingdoms in 1400 ( right ). In the 12 th century, when one of the kings of Aragon decided to marry a princess of …

From Karl Marx to Karl Rove: “Class Warfare” in American Politics

… Class is back. Whatever its other accomplishments, the Occupy Wall Street movement that sprouted … of shoes from start to finish; now as a wage worker, he cut one piece of leather to the same shape over and over. As … The federal government made enormous grants of land and money to a handful of businessmen to connect the West and the …
Campaign poster attacking Cleveland's morals.

Morality and Presidential Elections

… elected a president who was accused of cohabiting with one of his slaves (Jefferson), one whose marriage was of questionable legality (Jackson), and one who publicly admitted to fathering an illegitimate child …

The Year of Africa

… independence. But liberation in Africa was more than this one moment in the global process of decolonization. The 1960 … Each individual state’s independence is an important milestone, but the events of 1960 were part of a larger continuum … After touring British colonies in Africa, Macmillan had become increasingly convinced that “national consciousness” …
Cover of The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism: A Short History by David Farber.

The Far Right Stuff

Review of The Rise and Fall of Modern Conservatism, by David Farber (Princeton University Press, 2010)
… a table with friends and fight over.  I mean that as a high compliment, since there are far too many books out there, narrowly argued and turgidly written, that leave one feeling flat rather than engaged. So here are the terms … conservatism together. Farber has worked hard – sometimes one can almost feel him bending over backwards – to be fair …
The Ganden Monastery in Lhasa was one of the many victims of bombing during the 1956 uprising. The destruction caused to the monastery is still visible in the ruins.

The Seventeen Point Agreement: China’s Occupation of Tibet

… signed between the PRC and a minority people and is part of communist China’s larger nation-building process in its … and Amdo in the northeast, had their own local rulers, who nonetheless were faithful to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan … sought Chinese protection from imperialist powers. Clause One of the agreement stated that “The Tibetan people shall …
Female governors left to right, Nellie Tayloe Ross, Ella T. Grasso, Kay Orr, and Gretchen Whitmer.

A Century of Elected Woman Governors in the United States, 1924-2024

… at the time was but a technicality (Texas was largely a one-party state). Ross took the oath of office on January 5, … voting restrictions, the amendment’s passage was a milestone in voting rights history.  Neither Ross nor Ferguson … William B. Ross died while governor in October 1924 from complications following an emergency appendectomy. The …
Lady Liberty, wearing a cape labeled "Votes for Women," stands astride the states (colored white) that had adopted suffrage. A poem by Alice Duer Miller is printed beneath.

Smile, You’re a Liberal After All!

… The story line for the upcoming November elections has been that conservatives are … compare the conservative position on issues over the last one hundred years with the liberal position and you can … yourself.   Think 10-year-olds should work in coal mines? One hundred years ago conservative business interests and …
A portrait of Slobodan Milosevic

Glory and the New World Order

… Slobodan Milosevic is one of the demon princes of the modern American imagination. … of years the kings of Europe sought glory through a combination of military victories like Lepanto, the great … God-given destiny. In practical terms, to be a real king one had to crush one's enemies and flaunt one's wealth and …