Spanning the Islamic world, from ninth-century Baghdad to nineteenth-century Iran, this book tells the story of the key Muslim map-makers and the art of Islamic cartography. Muslims were uniquely placed to explore the edges of the inhabited world and their maps stretched from Isfahan to Palermo, from Istanbul to Cairo and Aden. Over a similar [...]
Tag: Geography
Wandering the wine-dark sea – Greek migration and dialects – Ancient World Magazine
The ancient Greeks were, like all people, highly mobile, and they founded a large number of settlements beyond the Aegean basin. What are some of the characteristics of Greek migration, and did these settlers bring their dialects and customs with them? — Read on http://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/greek-migration-dialects/
Age of Gilgamesh (3000 BC to 2500 BC) : Geopolitics of Ancient Mesopotamia
https://www.youtube.com/embed/z8rMp_AeR5M Age of Gilgamesh In this presentation we will begin exploring the beginnings of recorded history in Mesopotamia, beginning from the early third millennium BC. We will explore the lives of some great heroic kings of Sumeria, as they led Sumeria from a region of small city states to the first empires which dominated the [...]
The Long 18th Century : rise and fall of the Great Game
By G. S. Goraya When John Mearshimer wrote his book, the Tragedy of Great Power politics, he used the term tragedy for a reason. The ‘tragedy’ of great power politics is summed up by the phrase – uncertainly of intentions. Because one actor does not know what his opponent will do – one must assume [...]
The Long 18th Century : rise and fall of the Great Game
G. S. Goraya When John Mearshimer wrote his book, the Tragedy of Great Power politics, he used the term tragedy for a reason. The ‘tragedy’ of great power politics is summed up by the phrase – uncertainly of intentions. Because one actor does not know what his opponent will do – one must assume he [...]
National Security Podcast: Great power competition with Ali Wyne – Policy Forum
In this episode of the National Security Podcast, Katherine Mansted speaks to Ali Wyne about why great powers compete, how China, Russia, and the United States are shaping the global system, and whether their behaviour is making the post-COVID-19 world more dangerous. Is competition between great powers destined to be fraught with the risk of [...]
How the geometry of ancient habitats may have influenced human brain evolution | Ars Technica
There's a pivotal scene in the 2012 film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey when Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, and a company of dwarves are chased by orcs through a classic New Zealand landscape. For Northwestern University neuroscientist and engineer Malcolm MacIver, the scene is an excellent example of the kind of patchy landscape—dotted with trees, bushes, [...]
Armenian-Azerbaijani Border Clashes: The Russian Dimension and Beyond – Jamestown
Following the outbreak of deadly Armenian-Azerbaijani border clashes on July 12 (see EDM, July 14, 16, 20 [1][2]), Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom reported that its local natural gas pipelines in Armenia were damaged, due to the shelling (TASS, RBC, July 14). Furthermore, the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) announced a meeting, at the [...]
“Suez in Perspective” – British Propaganda Film on the Invasion of Egypt in 1956
Disentangling the security traffic jam in the Sahel: constitutive effects of contemporary interventionism | International Affairs | Oxford Academic
Despite years of ongoing interventions by multiple external and regional actors, the security situation in west Africa's Sahel region is dramatically deteriorating. In this introduction to the special section of the July 2020 issue of International Affairs, we zoom in on four major external international intervention actors (France, the United States, the European Union and [...]
