Category: History
The Last Shah
May 13, 2021
Ray Takeyh— Why did Iran have a revolution in 1979? The immediate causes can be easily summarized: The economic recession of the mid-1970s had halted the shah’s development projects and… READ MORE
Delia’s Tears
April 27, 2021
Molly Rogers— When in 1976 fifteen daguerreotypes of black men and women were discovered in the attic of the Peabody Museum, the question of their meaning and purpose was immediately… READ MORE
The Year of Peril
April 19, 2021
Tracy Campbell— As 1943 dawned, the relentless fear that had gripped the nation since Pearl Harbor had somewhat lessened, and although most understood that the most difficult days of the… READ MORE
Founding God’s Nation
April 16, 2021
Leon R. Kass— Exodus, the second of the Five Books of Moses (The Torah), contains some of the most famous stories in Western literature: the enslavement of the Children of… READ MORE
From Dante to Disney
April 12, 2021
José María Pérez Fernández and Edward Wilson-Lee— A few days ago, a subsecretary in the newly-installed Italian government led by Mario Draghi tweeted out to followers an inspiring message which… READ MORE
How the Russian State Sustained an “Empire of Difference”
March 30, 2021
Janet M. Hartley— In the late thirteenth century, Muscovy was a small, landlocked principality and a vassal state of the Mongol Empire. By the late the sixteenth century, however, it… READ MORE
Police Before “The Police”
March 16, 2021
Sal Nicolazzo— In his Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms—the precursor to The Wealth of Nations—Adam Smith defines “the objects of police” as “the cheapness of commodities, public security and… READ MORE
Brexit as a British State of Mind
March 5, 2021
Vernon Bogdanor— Is Britain part of Europe? Of course, geographically we certainly are part of Europe. But politically? The answer is by no means clear. Britain has long had an… READ MORE
The Zionist Revolution
March 3, 2021
Micah Goodman— Modernity burst onto the stage of history some three hundred years ago, when free thinkers of all stripes—philosophers, revolutionaries, political leaders—struck blow after blow at the traditions of… READ MORE
From 9/11 to 9/11: The Widening of the Atlantic