Search Results

Displaying 1177 - 1200 of 1469
Heads of delegations at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21), which led to the signing of the Paris Agreement.

Looking for a Common Language at Copenhagen

… of solving a problem facing the entire world, the summit’s composition best resembles a hodgepodge of national-or what … summits can’t bring results if those present don’t share a common language or a common tradition, no matter how pressing the issue. They end …
The Great Mosque of Djenne. This image illustrates the influence of Islam in the region and the building style of the region. Its origins are unknown but it shows the power of the emperors who built this structure that still stands today.

A New View of West African Empires

Review of African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa, by Michael A. Gomez (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018)
… colonial era has been relegated to the periphery of most studies of this period. In African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa , however, Michael A. Gomez places West … how interconnected each empire was and how intricate and complex politics were in West Africa during this period. He …
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum with a sign announcing the 70th anniversary ceremony.

A Postcard from Hiroshima

… of the bombing and was able to witness how the Japanese commemorate these tragic events. Hiroshima Peace Memorial … so severely that they had little skin left on their bodies. Several cried out for water, though when she fetched one man a cup of water, he died soon after drinking it. With buildings destroyed and …
San Francisco earthquake 1906

San Francisco 1906 and Katrina 2005: The Increasing Costs of Unpreparedness

… that followed the earthquake wiping out its business and commercial districts. Still the scope of the two disasters is comparable. The number of residents displaced by nature's … happen is great, such safeguards cost pennies on the dollar compared with the expense of a total rebuild after a …
Three former directors of the Global Smallpox Eradication Programme read the news that smallpox had been globally eradicated, 1980.

The WHO and the Eradication of Smallpox

… was the result of a decades-long global program involving complex geopolitical cooperation, human ingenuity, and … States and the Soviet Union worked together towards a common purpose: combating smallpox in 43 countries with a … she was diagnosed with  variola major on August 20; she died on September 11 and became smallpox’s final victim.  In …
A posthumous portrait of Ferdinand Magellan, painted c. 16th or 17th century

Magellan’s Circumnavigation of the Earth

… 1494, after Christopher Columbus returned from the West Indies, the Spanish and Portuguese governments signed a deal … and develop trade with Africa, Asia, and the East Indies, while Spain controlled the Americas. By 1515, then, … in, some of them to work off debts. Magellan’s second-in-command was the Spanish overseer and accountant, Juan de …
Cover of Robert Clifton Weaver and the American City The Life and Times of an Urban Reformer by Wendell E. Pritchett.

Invisible Man

Review of Robert Clifton Weaver and the American City: The Life and Times of an Urban Reformer , by Wendell E. Pritchett (University of Chicago Press, 2008)
… the idea of a color-blind America. Media pundits and social commentators nationwide claimed that Obama's election … success. History, however, might prove otherwise.  As we come to the end of the first decade of the twenty-first … through the Presidency, and Weaver never wavered from that commitment even when his strategy failed to make any …
Sister Rosetta Tharpe

The Mother of Rock and Roll

… disc jockey Alan Freed crowing “That’s Bill Haley and the Comets rockin’ and rollin’ you with ‘Shake, Rattle and … even of sexuality. Tharpe’s career was cut short when she died of complications from diabetes in 1973, at the age of … packed Griffith Stadium were mostly middle-aged church ladies, not the screaming teeny-boppers who would fill Shea …
Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel, two of the murdered women of El Salvador

The Murdered Churchwomen in El Salvador

… believed that anyone who opposed the military regime was a communist, including religious figures. This slogan, … according to leading liberation theologists like Gustavo Gutierrez, had a moral responsibility to recognize, … nuns based on their dress code. On December 4, their bodies were found in shallow graves. They had been raped and …
Medical examination photo of Gordon showing his scourged back, widely distributed by Abolitionists to expose the brutality of slavery. From at least the 1860s onwards, photography was a powerful tool in the abolitionist movement.

Can Reparations Heal the Wounds of Slavery?

… elsewhere indicate that the slavery lawsuit could become an invaluable tool for bridging the racial divide in … system, and perhaps even reaches the stage of exploring remedies, public discussion is likely to provide momentum for a … Yet an agreement that would allocate funds for housing subsidies, health care and education opportunities might be …
A view of the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

A Dawn of Peace in Bethlehem?

… relations in the region. By 2001, Christmas had become a casualty of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Israel … President Yasser Arafat, a Muslim, from traveling from his compound in Ramallah across Israel in order to be present at … 21 hotels in the area were empty. The Bethlehem Hotel, accommodating mainly journalists and Palestinian Authority …
Portrait of James Madison.

The Hidden Consequences of Campaign Finance Reform

… discussion of issues over party politics but make political compromise even more difficult than it is today. In 1787, … ratified as the law of the land, he argued that competition among many interest groups was the genius of the … National Philadelphia” and director of American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University. …
Last Supper By Simon Ushakov, 1685

Reverence and Relics: The Holy Dead in the Pre-Modern Christian World

Review of Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, by Robert Bartlett (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013)
… were an obvious denominational marker. “Part Two: Dynamics” comprises the bulk of the book. In chapters five through … of some pilgrims were not strictly spiritual, and he compares the practice with modern tourism. In chapter … churches, towns, and individuals over the course of the medieval period. Two chapters on the imagery and literature …
A bus that has been blown up by terrorists

A Who’s Who of Jihadi Terrorism in Europe

Review of Islamist Terrorism in Europe: A History, by Petter Nesser (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)
… of Charlie Hebdo in 2015. Looking at specific case studies of terrorist cells and associated acts of terrorism , … France by connecting these jihadist veterans with foot-soldiers drafted from ethnic-Algerian street gangs in France. … European cells in Europe and established its own cells commanded directly by leaders in Afghanistan. Despite being …
Headline in The Philadelphia Inquirer of November 16, 1919, reporting the first use of cloture by the United States Senate.

The Founders Cared about the Majority Principle

… would eliminate filibusters to prevent legislation from coming to the floor for debate, while retaining filibusters … the Senate as Jefferson's vice president from 1801-1805 recommended dropping in an effort to simplify Senate rules. …  But it made using a filibuster infinitely more easy by permitting senators merely to indicate an intention …
Cover of Wounded Knee Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre by Heather Cox Richardson

Where Our Hearts Are Still Buried

Review of Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre, by Heather Cox Richardson (New York: Basic Books, 2010)
… asked Big Foot, leader of the Minneconjou Teton Sioux, to come to Pine Ridge Reservation with his followers in hopes … east of Wounded Knee Creek. On the following morning the soldiers attempted to disarm the Indian camp. A shot rang out as one man refused to give up his gun and the edgy soldiers opened fire. At least 150 Sioux men, women, and …
1866 cartoon by Daumier, L’Equilibre Européen, representing the balance of power as soldiers of different nations teeter the earth on bayonets.

Democracy by Force, or by Example?

… Spreading democracy has become the nation’s principal foreign policy goal. Yet there … one member said, should have nothing to do “with the wrongs committed by other Governments against those whom they …
An image of the castle in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando.

Banning Harry Potter

… too crude for refined readers. Twenty years later, critics complained that the characters were poor role models. By the … evil. Harry’s true magic is that he is empowered by his compassion and tolerance of others.   Potter’s antagonists … Harry Potter may rival Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield to become one of America’s most banned boys. Elizabeth D. Schafer …
Mary Mallon in a hospital bed in 1907.

Who Was Typhoid Mary?

… tested and found to be full of typhoid bacilli.  Mallon had committed no crime. She had been unaware of her carrier … public support for Mallon’s plight.  When a new health commissioner took office in 1910, he decided to release her … Island, where she lived in a cottage with only a dog for a companion until her death in 1938. In the interim, …
A solemn crowd gathers outside the Stock Exchange after the crash. 1929.

This Year’s Equation: 1920 + 1932 = 2008

… To make the case that an election is momentous, you need to compare it with previous critical ones. The most important … elected.   In 1920, the incumbent party’s president had become very unpopular as a result of a war that had not … Herbert Hoover.   Next week’s election is shaping up as a combination of 1932 and 1920. The Panic of 2008 is having an …
Moskvitch 3 vehicles roll off the assembly line at JSC Moscow Automobile Plant Moskvitch, 2022.

Sanctions on Russia: Impact and Efficacy

… damaging sanctions against the Russian state, its companies, and its citizens. The sanctions were intended to … one of the most visible effects of sanctions to date, major companies left Russia. Multinational giants such as … armored vehicles. In another instance, the engines of Bombardier light off-road vehicles were found in the Iranian …
President Ronald Reagan during an interview in 1988.

Marking a Tragic Anniversary

… legacy with which Americans will sooner or later have to come to terms: today we live in a society of greater … critically weakened the one entity best equipped to combat growing income inequality in the United States: organized labor. …
American Anti-Slavery Society, 1837

Revisiting Long Histories of the Reparations Debate

Review of Reparations for Slavery and The Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History, by Ana Lucia Araujo (New York City: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2017)
… enslaved Africans generated tremendous wealth for an elite community of slave owners, slave traders, and political … enslaved individuals and their descendants petitioned for compensation, recognition, and material support, known today … for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History chronicles the history of the …