Reviews
The Violent and Often Ugly Story of How Portugal Won A Global Empire
In works such as City of Fortune, Empires of the Sea and 1453, historian Roger Crowley focused on the struggles between the Renaissance powers–Christian and Muslim alike–over who would control the Mediterranean and the lucrative trade between East and West. In Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire, Crowley moves his account outside…
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America Dancing
I am at least as passionate about danceas I am about books and history–happy to be either participant or observer.* As a child, I worked hard on my turnout and devoured every book about the history of dance that came my way. Just ask me about Fanny Gessler, Maria Tallchief, or Isadora Duncan–all heroines of…
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The Eastern Question
In the weeks after 9/11, self-described “scholar-printer” Ted Danforth struggled to understand why the attacks occurred. He found his first clue in Osama bin Laden’s statement that the attacks were revenge for the Ottoman Empire’s dismemberment after World War I and Islam’s subsequent humiliation at the hands of the West. That statement led Danforth to…
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