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Cleopatra Podcast Series: Day 2

Cleopatra’s sexual liaisons have made her for famous being the femme fatale of classical antiquity and a heroine in the greatest love affair of all time. In Cleopatra: A Biography historian, archaeologist, and classical scholar Duane Roller aims to clear up the infamous queen’s identity—from the propaganda in the Roman Republic all the way to her representations in film today. And what, according to Roller, do the cold hard facts reveal? A pragmatic leader trying to save her kingdom as the reality of a full blown empire loomed ahead.

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Cleopatra Podcast Series: Day 1

Cleopatra’s sexual liaisons have made her for being the femme fatale of classical antiquity and a heroine in the greatest love affair of all time. In Cleopatra: A Biography historian, archaeologist, and classical scholar Duane Roller aims to clear up the infamous queen’s identity—from the propaganda in the Roman Republic all the way to her representations in film today. And what, according to Roller, do the cold hard facts reveal? A pragmatic leader trying to save her kingdom as the reality of a full blown empire loomed ahead.

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Icy Disaster in the Andes, Climate Lesson for the World

Although some US senators may resist discussion of the new climate and energy bill this week, people around the world continue to live with incessant dangers that disrupt their daily lives and threaten their existence. A recent glacier avalanche in Peru, for example, unleashed a powerful outburst flood that caused significant destruction. It was the same kind of flood that increasingly endangers people living near melting glaciers worldwide, from Switzerland and Norway to Canada and New Zealand, China and Nepal.

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Doha Blues

Why have the Doha negotiations been so painfully slow and unsuccessful so far? A review of recent commentary and analysis seems to indicate that the difficulty has many roots, as shown by the following list of contributing factors:

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Plunder and the Musée Napoléon

Wayne Sandholtz, author of Prohibiting Plunder, examines the Napoleonic practice of seizing art from conquered territories and the appointing a specialist for this very purpose.

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Ten things you might not know about Cleopatra

Most of my knowledge on ancient Greece and Rome comes from watching the TV show ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. Xena not only encounters Julius Caesar, Pompeius, and Octavian in her quests, but Marc Antony and Cleopatra as well. I was thus eager to learn more of the historical, ‘real-life’ Cleopatra.

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Islamagic?

Adam Silverstein compares the study of Islamic history to the performance of magic.

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