Subjects Archives: Media

  In an effort to establish peaceful diplomacy with the government and people of Iran, and to model for the new Obama administration the power of cooperative good will, three highly regarded American peace makers have ventured to Iran.  CodePink cofounders, Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin, along with former Army Colonel and decorated Foreign Service […]

Hakan Ozoglu. Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries.   Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.  xv + 186 pp.  $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7914-5993-5. Identifying Kurdish nationalism as “one of the most explosive and critical predicaments in the Middle East,” the author notes that “the subject regrettably […]

  President Bush has oft stated that history will be the rightful judge of his legacy.  Some academics, such as John Lewis Gaddis and Fareed Zakaria, have already begun early revisions to the Bush years.  But as historians mark the final score, they must not omit a serious examination of the administration’s policies in Somalia, […]

  miriam cooke.   Dissident Syria: Making Oppositional Arts Official.   Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.  vii + 208 pp. Illustrations. $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8223-4016-4; $21.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8223-4035-5. To live and do research in Syria is to confront contradictions at almost every turn.  In a repressive state, artists not only create works that are […]

  Beth Baron.  Egypt As a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics.   Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.  292 pp. $60.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-520-23857-2. In Egypt as a Woman Beth Baron explores the connections between Egyptian nationalism, gendered images and discourses of the nation, and the politics of elite Egyptian women from the late nineteenth […]

  Less than a minute in, Nawal El Saadawi, the ideological godmother of Muslim feminists, flouts author interview protocol rather fabulously, by pretending she’s not really doing one.  I’m at a sunny breakfast table in Edinburgh on the last day of her UK book tour, to discuss the republication of her seminal 1970s books, but […]

  Sandra M. Sufian.   Healing the Land and the Nation: Malaria and the Zionist Project in Palestine, 1920-1947.   Chicago  University of Chicago Press, 2007.   xviii + 385 pp.  $40.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-226-77935-5. In this meticulously researched book, Sandra M. Sufian, an assistant professor of medical humanities and history at the University of Illinois […]

  We are witnessing an insidious new wave of demonization of Arabs and Muslims.  The presidential race has surfaced deep prejudices that will be here long after we have elected a new leader.  Look closely, and you’ll find many right-wing Christian and Jewish groups that deny the fundamental rights of Palestinians, deliberately fueling fear of […]

  Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks: African Employees in the Making of Colonial Africa.  Madison University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.  342 pp.  $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-299-21950-5. In the 1970s and 1980s, an edited volume focused entirely on African colonial intermediaries such as interpreters, translators, clerks, and secretaries would not have aroused much interest from historians of […]

  I recently spent three weeks gathering information about the anti-displacement movement in India.  As a guest of Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan (People’s Movement against Displacement and for Development), I traveled across central and eastern India visiting the sites of proposed industrial and mining projects, Special Economic Zones, and real estate developments.  I spoke […]

  Child of the Sit-Downs: The Revolutionary Life of Genora Dollinger, by Carlton Jackson, WKU Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History.  Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2008.  256 pages, $39.00 (cloth). This wonderful book is a most welcome biography of Genora Dollinger, labor reformer and feminist.  Genora (her husband told Dr. Jackson that she […]

Kangamba is one of the most serious and dramatic films I have ever seen. I watched it on a small television screen but perhaps my judgment is influenced by cherished memories. Hundreds of thousands of Cuban compatriots will have the privilege of watching it on the big screen of movie theaters.

I did not want to write a third consecutive reflection, but I can not leave that for Monday.

There is one accurate response to Bush’s “democratic capitalism”: Chavez’s democratic socialism. There wouldn’t be a more accurate way to express the big contradiction that exists between North and South in our hemisphere, between the ideas of Bolivar and those of Monroe.

  Nothing expresses the widening gap between the mind frames of the Iranian ruling elite and their Western counterparts more than the headlines in their respective newspapers.  The American media, above all, have unilaterally resolved the intelligence questions over Iran’s nuclear program.  The New York Times leads the pack with articles and even editorials that […]

  You’ll be familiar with the story.  An evil or crazy (the two are interchangeable) maniac is trying to destroy the American way of life, sowing destruction in an American city, blowing up American buildings, killing American citizens.  We stand amidst the rubble, watching the firemen, wondering what happened.  This man is demented, unreasonable; he […]

  As the election draws closer, we will hear more and more about the politics of Jesus, as liberals and conservatives jockey to place the shining halo of Christianity over their own heads.  Without saying it, they will imply, “Jesus would have voted for me!” Putting aside for a moment the rudeness of regularly forcing […]

I wanted a roof for every family, bread for every mouth, education for every heart, light for every intellect.  I am convinced that the human history has not yet begun — that we find ourselves in the last period of the prehistoric.  I see with the eyes of my soul how the sky is diffused […]

This US election year, an unprecedented number of voters will likely head to the polls to cast their ballots in an exercise that should take just a few minutes to complete.  But what about the rest of the minutes left in the year?  Author and activist Chris Carlsson has some suggestions for social change beyond […]

Lloyd D. McCarthy, “In-Dependence” from Bondage: Claude McKay and Michael Manley Defying the Ideological Clash and Policy Gaps in African Diaspora Relations (Africa World Press, 2007). Claude McKay and Michael Manley may seem like strange bedfellows for a study in 20th-century politics.  Though both born in Jamaica, a generation apart, they could hardly have pursued […]

  Hailed as a subversive action flick for its portrayal of weapons industry corruption, Iron Man is a disappointing techno-imperialist fantasy, but its special effects will keep die-hard gadget fetishists on the edge of their seats. Based on Marvel’s successful Cold War-era comic book, Iron Man tells the story of American überman Tony Stark (Robert […]