Essays
The Forgotten East
Western writers have hesitated for centuries — over a millennium even — to call Byzantium what it was: the Roman Empire. The historian Anthony Kaldellis has dubbed this tendency “Roman denialism,” an intellectual condition he has mercilessly criticized for years. Now he has brought this battle to a popular audience.
A Cartographic Conflict
For centuries, Ghajar was a poor, remote village in the Ottoman Empire. But after World War I, French colonial cartographers drew a line on a map that had long-term implications for the villagers. Today, they live in political limbo, their village claimed by Syria and divided between Lebanon and Israel.
The Humiliation Is the Point
Humiliation has become inextricable from the exercise of U.S. power. It is tempting to attribute this development to Trump alone, but his role as humiliator-in-chief should be understood as part of a dynamic of humiliation and counter-humiliation going back to 9/11 and America’s response to it.
The Multiple Identities of Syria’s New Leader
To some, Syria’s new transitional president is a cunning mastermind whose jihadist roots threaten to plunge the region into a new cycle of extremism and violence. But Ahmad al-Sharaa’s family legacy and the evolution of his rhetoric, ideas and actions hint at a deeper story.
A New Discovery Sheds Light on Malcolm X’s Journey to Islam
Previous Malcolm X biographies did him a disservice by skimming over his period of incarceration. Behind prison walls, he developed his mind and his faith, honing his love for language. It was a formative time, best understood by considering what he read and appreciating what he wrote.
The American Dream 100 Years After the National Origins Act
Between 1905 and 1925, a clerk at Ellis Island took photographs of immigrants to the U.S. Today, the images created by Augustus Sherman are providing a point of departure for research and an inspiration for artworks.
By Rejecting Evidence of Genocide in Gaza, the US Is Following a Familiar Pattern
The administrations of both Joe Biden and now Donald Trump have vociferously denounced a growing international legal consensus that Israel has been violating the Genocide Convention. This follows a decades-long pattern of the U.S. government denying, downplaying and rationalizing genocide and related crimes against humanity by American allies.