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Abovian Among the Kurds, painting by Mkrtich Sedrakyan, 1950. (Image from author's personal collection, courtesy of the Khachatur Abovian House-Museum, Yerevan, Armenia.)

Top Ten Origins: Russia’s Relations with the Kurds

… united in a struggle for civil and political rights, they comprise various tribal affiliations and speak different … are adherents of the Yazidi faith, a religion that shares common elements with Christianity, Islam, and … brought it into contact with different Kurdish tribes. Since then, Moscow has maintained relations with Kurds both …
President George W. Bush in 2004.

When the Axis Was Truly Evil

… peace than Bush’s “axis of evil.” The president’s comments have led to denunciations from the three nations he singled out and the largest anti-American demonstrations in … the president is issuing a legitimate warning to the world community or defining global enemies unilaterally and …
Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Deng Xiaoping during the state dinner for the Vice Premier of China

The Nixon-Deng Comparison

… a famous politician dies, obituary writers and other commentators immediately start comparing the departed figure to other powerful people. As … of comparing him to Richard Nixon. This is unfortunate, since there are some striking and illuminating analogies to …
Cygnet, Ohio, in Wood County was a booming oil town with 13 saloons and many workers when this photo was taken in 1885.

An Energy Plan for You!

… adviser Lawrence Lindsey put it straightforwardly and single-mindedly: “We need more refineries, we need more … Dwight D. Eisenhower and Republican legislators took unbecomingly large financial contributions from the appreciative … seen whether George W. will allow his administration to be completely captured by his fossil fuel buddies. Eisenhower, …
A Day in a Medieval City, by Chiara Frugoni Book Cover

A Day in a Medieval City

Review of A Day in a Medieval City, by Chiara Frugoni (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2007)
… had written two short articles on urban life. Frugoni combined the two articles, included her own notes, and has … The impetus for the book thus creates certain limitations, since the introduction acts as the roadmap for the material … almost entirely on its inhabitants. To do so, she deftly combines textual and visual sources. Using primarily the …
Two baseballs.

Why Dick Allen Never Reached the Hall

… have been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame since 1936. Dick Allen, eligible since 1982, is still … career home runs and his 1,119 RBIs place him in the same company as such Hall of Famers as Yogi Berra, Roy … be sure, Allen forced the white baseball establishment to come to terms with the racism that existed in the game in …
Soup Cans by Andy Warhol - https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79809

Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962

… In the 50 years since they first went on display, Andy Warhol’s 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans have become a canonical symbol of American Pop Art. Warhol, an American commercial illustrator from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania turned …
Photograph of a mock-up of the Little Boy nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945. This was the first photograph of the Little Boy bomb casing to ever be released by the U.S. government (it was declassified in 1960).

Sowing Nuclear Seeds of Division

… about the most radical change in U.S. military strategy since Dwight D. Eisenhower took office as president in 1953. … inventing new “nukes” and new ways to deliver them. He felt compelled to build almost all of them, lest the Russians get … wants to harness U.S. security to space technology and the computer revolution. This will lead to another costly trap. …
A KFC in Hanoi, Vietnam

Kentucky Fried Globalization

… American press corps will find a better way of handling the complex cultural dimensions of Vietnam’s re-engagement with … played up the irony of an icon of U.S. enterprise being welcomed by a once bitterly anti-American Communist Party. Once … to stay in power by limiting political freedoms while increasing the choices that people have about what to consume and …
Cover of A Cruel Wind: Pandemic Flu in America, 1918-1920 by Dorothy Ann Pettit and Janice Bailie.

Before There Was Swine Flu

Review of A Cruel Wind: Pandemic Flu in America, 1918-1920, by Dorothy A. Pettit and Janice Bailie (Timberlane Books, 2008)
… was upgrading the recent outbreak of H1N1 influenza, more commonly known as "swine flu," to a global pandemic. Although the designation comes from the increasing spread and not increasing severity of the disease, the …
A view of New York City behind Secretary Gale Norton in a lower Manhattan office space in 2006.

Downsizing Becomes Normal

… (56 percent more than the previous December). In the months since, AT&T, Chase Manhattan, Raytheon and Boeing alone … his father, also an Edison employee, counseled him that the company would provide a secure life. Myers’ forced retirement during company retrenchment in 1996 broke that contract, and he has …
The Favorites of Emperor Honorius by John William Waterhouse depicts the emperor's court in the 5th century CE.

Financing Salvation in Late Antiquity

Review of The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity, by Peter Brown (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2015.)
… by changing circumstances in the secular world. Fittingly, since it was none other than Peter Brown who defined the … of the living, and that the property of the church had come to be thought of as being held as a trust with which to … of these memorials reflects contemporary values. But it becomes more of a stretch when he asks us to share his …
With running mate Paul Ryan in Norfolk, Virginia, during the vice presidential selection announcement on August 11, 2012

Vice Presidential Nominees Must Be Plausible As President

… or on appealing to independents? Some of those factors may come into play, yet the recent history of vice-presidential … good politics, as well as good governance, requires choosing a running mate who would be a plausible president. … perform under the pressure of a presidential campaign could complicate their chances.   It’s not that citizens base …
a Galapagos sea turtle swimming in the ocean

What’s “Natural” on the Galapagos Islands?

The youngest, westernmost islands are still volcanically active and are thought to be no more than 700,000 thousand years old.
… devoid of animal or plant life. This initial isolation, combined with its location at the confluence of three … middle of the 1990s, the goat population had exploded, causing massive ecosystem degradation as forests and shrubby … millions of dollars, humans eradicated a species that was using its biological advantage to thrive in a harsh …
"The National Game. Three Outs and One Run." Drawing depicting the four candidates of the 1860 United States presidential election (L to R): John Bell, Stephen Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, and Abraham Lincoln. The artist is comparing the election to a baseball game.

The Election of 1860 and Secession — to Preserve Slavery

… initiated." That evening, in a foreshadowing of events to come, fireworks lit the sky above Fort Sumter. Who could … Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas labored to craft a compromise to bring the seceding states back into the union. … on his party's opposition to slavery in the territories. A compromise on southern demands for the West, he said, might …
Cover of The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall by Mary Elise Sarotte.

…And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: A History of Contingency and Happenstance

Review of The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall, by Mary Elise Sarotte New York: Basic Books, 2014.
… irrevocably porous. But the events of November 9 did not come from nowhere. The fall of the Berlin Wall—as detailed … she instead writes the history of serendipity whose outcome was far from predetermined, even if it seems so in … Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate, November 1989 Since 1949, the government of the German Democratic Republic …
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, shakes hands with a US Air Force general officer prior to his departure from the United States

The Need to Talk with Iran

… occur. The two nations have had little diplomatic contact since the 1979 hostage crisis, when Iranians seized the American embassy in Teheran. In the decades since then, Iran has been developing its nuclear technology … weapon. Any potential United States-Iran dialogue would complement European efforts to persuade the Iranians to …

American Presidential Scandals

… Sometimes it seems as if the administration is collapsing the history of American political scandal down to a … A tweet from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library after comparisons were made between Nixon and President Trump when the latter fired the Director of the FBI, James Comey. The High Bar The ubiquitous, unfathomable ur-scandal …
American W84 warhead from the 1980s.

Nuclear Arms Control – Now, More than Ever

… weapons. A breakthrough on this critical issue could come as part of an overall commitment toward deeper, verifiable nuclear arms cuts. Such … considered such steps crucial for America’s security since in his view nuclear weapons were “the only thing that …
A group of men and women. The women hold signs that say "My Body, My Choice"

Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Justice

… they evolved over time? When, how, and why did abortion become such a controversial topic in the United States? How … Mark Sokolsky   Hello, everyone. Welcome to History Talk , where we ask a panel of leading … Patrick, I think that's a great question. Because I think, since the supreme court judgment, the Roe v Wade judgement …
The ruins of Ludlow

Which Side Are You On?: The Ludlow Massacre and Class Struggle in 1914

… is the site of the deadliest labor war in American history. Since the autumn of 1913, Ludlow miners (pictured above in 1914) had struck for union recognition; the company's obedience to Colorado's 8-hour day law; the right to live outside of company houses; an end to being paid in scrip (money only …