History

Ethiopia and the BBC: The politics of development assistance

By Peter Gill
In the course of 17 minutes, Newsnight managed to review six years’ worth of all that had gone wrong in Ethiopia, from post-election violence in 2005, to the intensified anti-insurgency operations in Somali Region after 2007, to more recent opposition complaints that their supporters were being deprived of international development assistance. To emphasise the British aid connection, the film concluded: ‘The purpose of development aid is to help Ethiopia on to its feet, to establish democracy, justice and the rule of law. The evidence we’ve gathered suggests it is failing.’

Care-less America

By John Tirman
The American public is essentially indifferent to the victims of wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The native populations that U.S. troops intervened on behalf of, or who were under the thumb of dictators we were trying to depose, suffered greatly in those wars, with millions dead and additional millions made homeless, impoverished, widowed, injured, or deprived of a normal life. This staggering human toll was and is not America’s responsibility alone, of course. But what is remarkable is how little the American public sympathizes with these victims, how little concern is registered.

Professor Wright and Professor Skeat

By Anatoly Liberman
From time to time I mention the unsung heroes of English etymology, but only once have I devoted a post to such a hero (Frank Chance), though I regularly sing praises to Charles P.G. Scott, the etymologist for The Century Dictionary. Today I would like to speak about Joseph Wright (1855-1930). He was not an etymologist in the strict sense of this term, but no article on the origin of English words can do without consulting The English Dialect Dictionary he edited.

The suspicious revolution: an interview with Talal Asad

By Nathan Schneider
Not long after his return from Cairo, where he was doing fieldwork, I spoke with Talal Asad at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, where he is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. Distinguished indeed: with books like Genealogies of Religion and Formations of the Secular, as well as numerous articles, Asad’s work has been formative for current scholarly conversation about religion and secularity, stressing both

Where are all the Islamic terrorists?

By Charles Kurzman

Last month, a few hours after a bomb exploded in downtown Oslo, I got a call from a journalist seeking comment. Why did Al Qaeda attack Norway? Why not a European country with a larger Muslim community, or a significant military presence in Muslim societies? I said I didn’t know.

A second media inquiry soon followed: Given NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the number of disaffected Muslims in Europe, why don’t we see more attacks like the one in Norway? This question was more up my alley. I recently

Phantom states and rebels with a cause

By Daniel Byman and Charles King Three years ago this month, Russia and Georgia fought a brief and brutal war over an obscure slice of mountainous land called South Ossetia that had declared its independence from Georgia. Flouting international law, Russia stepped in to defend South Ossetia and later formally recognized the secessionists as a […]

The deep wound

By Nigel Young

Rioting in English cities can be written off as the same mindless looting and burning that spread in US cities such as Los Angeles in the past. (I’m reminded of the 1965 Watts riots.) But then as now, context is everything. In a simplistic analysis, a feral elite has bred a “feral” urban mob in a classic, centuries-old repetition of patterns of social discontent, bubbling to the surface in a sudden expression of blind undirected rage. The young, the jobless and the marginal, in particular, sense at least their displacement and invisibility.

Nazis on the run

Gerald Steinacher is the first person to uncover the full extent of the secret escape routes and hiding places ‘ratlines’ that smuggled Nazis out of Europe, through South Tyrol, across the Alps into Italy, and onward to Argentina and elsewhere. His ground-breaking research in the archives of the ICRC in Geneva brought to light the fact that the Red Cross supplied travel papers to war criminals – amongst them Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele.

Are riots normal? Or,
‘Don’t panic, Captain Mainwaring!’

By Leif Jerram

As we watch riots tear through the centres of British cities, many people have (instinctively and understandably) tried to see something of profound importance in them. For Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, they show why the budget for his police force should not be cut. For those on the left, the riots have been an essay in the perils of vacuous consumerism on the one hand, and shameless abandonment of the poor by the state on the other. And for our Conservative prime minister, it is confirmation that parts of our society are sick and evil.

The King of Showmen

By Rebecca Alpert

Today, Harlem Globetrotter star Reece “Goose” Tatum will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. But Tatum also deserves consideration for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Baseball was Tatum’s first sport and first love.

Tatum was a gifted pantomime artist and comedian.

Coups, corporations, and classified information

By Arindrajit Dube, Ethan Kaplan, and Suresh Naidu

The Central Intelligence Agency was created in 1947 under the National Security Act. The act allowed for “functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security,” in addition to intelligence gathering. Initially, the scope of the CIA was relegated to intelligence, though a substantial and vocal group advocated for a more active role for the agency. This culminated in National Security Council Directive No. 4, which ordered the CIA to undertake covert actions against communism.

Why history says gay people can’t marry…nor can anyone else*

By Helen Berry

I happened to be in New York at the end of June this year when the State legislature passed the Marriage Equality Act to legalise same-sex marriage. By coincidence, it was Gay Pride weekend, and a million people waved rainbow flags in the streets of Manhattan, celebrating this landmark ruling in the campaign for gay rights, and I was one of them.

What struck me as a visitor from the UK – where civil partnerships for same-sex couples have been legal since 2004 – was the way in which gay marriage is still such a divisive issue in American politics.

Have you heard of René Blum?

Well? Have you? If not, it’s probably because René Blum’s lifelong career in the arts has been safely hidden from the history books. Only his brother Léon Blum, the first Socialist and Jewish Prime Minister of France, received enormous attention. But Judith Chazin-Bennahum knows why René Blum deserves to be remembered: because he was an extraordinary man. Chazin-Bennahum’s book introduces the reader to the world of the Belle Epoque artists and writers, the Dreyfus Affair, the playwrights and painters who reigned supreme during the late 19^th century and early 20^th century period in Paris. Below she provides us with just a few of his most impressive accomplishments.

1 million dead in Iraq?

By John Tirman
As the U.S. war in Iraq winds down, we are entering a familiar phase, the season of forgetting—forgetting the harsh realities of the war. Mostly we forget the victims of the war, the Iraqi civilians whose lives and society have been devastated by eight years of armed conflict. The act of forgetting is a social and political act, abetted by the American news media. Throughout the war, but especially now, the minimal news we get from Iraq consistently devalues the death toll of Iraqi civilians.

Egypt: Her Excellency, Madame President?

By Bassem Sabry
In early April, Bothaina Kamel, a female television presenter and media figure, announced that she would run for the office of the presidency. In a society where the idea of a woman leading a country, the judiciary, or serving any similar role is discouraged by both culture and religion (indeed, it is often outright banned), the presence of a woman in elections stirs up strong reactions from the public. A cursory glance at the news articles that have mentioned her after she declared her candidacy feature such statements as: “Are we so out of men that we would be run by a woman?”

Arab Spring, Israeli reality

By Edward Zelinsky
The world watches events in Libya, Egypt, Syria and other parts of the Arab world with a mixture of hope and trepidation. Slogans promising the quick and easy reform of an Arab Spring have given way to the harsh reality that violent autocracies are not easily overthrown. A fundamental, but politically incorrect, truth of this combustible situation is that only one Middle Eastern nation has created a functioning democratic society: Israel. Arab reformers, if they wish to create free, modern states, must terminate the Arab boycott of Israel and must instead emulate Israel.