History
The Quarterly Review: How Did We Get Here?
A long-form documentary tracing the first 25 years of the 21st century, examining the political, technological and cultural forces that shaped the world we now inhabit. “The Quarterly Review” observes world events to answer the question: How did we get here?
Unmasking El Cid
El Cid was a mercenary, not a saint, yet he became a nationalist icon. Tam Hussein unpacks how myth, memory and Francoist propaganda shaped Spain’s identity, and how a medieval ruler’s legacy still haunts its politics today.
Jerusalem’s Impossible Friendship
Sonja Mejcher-Atassi joins New Lines’ Rasha Elass to discuss her new book, “An Impossible Friendship.”
Unfolding Paper’s Past: Evidence From Egypt – With Lydia Wilson
While the world was fixated on the Pyramids of Giza, excavations at the forgotten desert harbor of Wadi el-Jarf quietly unlocked a new historical discovery.
Overcoming the Deep Roots of Byzantine Orientalism
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.
South Africa’s Stance on Palestine Opens Questions About Apartheid and History
South Africa’s emergence as a leading voice against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories has placed the stridently pro-Israel Jewish community in the country in a bind, as it also struggles to grapple with its own complex relationship to the old apartheid system.
Britain’s Imperial Past Has Become a Battleground in the Culture Wars
For the last decade, the question of who gets to interrogate historical questions, and why they are motivated to do so, has become very fraught in Britain. The topics that have become most central to this controversy are the British Empire, British imperialism, and ideas about race, identity and belonging in the British nation.