Posts Tagged ‘reviews’
The Great Sea
As so often happens when I pick up a history book, I was recently whacked over the head by a factoid that was both obvious and illuminating: the name Mediterranean literally means “the sea between the lands”. It’s a good name, but it’s by no means the only name that sea has gone by. The…
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History on Display: Windows on the War
There are plenty of good reasons to visit the Art Institute of Chicago: the Impressionist collection, the Chagall window, the under-appreciated collection of South Asia art, the gift shop. But the Art Institute usually isn’t my first choice for a history lesson. In fact, it doesn’t generally take much to set me off on the…
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Who made the map of the modern Middle East?
The simple answer is: Great Britain. You want the long version? In The Makers of the Modern Middle East historians T.G. Fraser, Andrew Mango, and Robert McNamara tell the story of how today’s Middle East was created from the remains of the Ottoman Empire during the peace negotiations at the end of the First World…
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