Ray Takeyh— Why did Iran have a revolution in 1979? The immediate causes can be easily summarized: The economic recession of the mid-1970s had halted the shah’s development projects and created expectations that the state could not meet. Pervasive repression was making peaceful protest impossible. The decayed Pahlavi state lacked
Geoffrey F. Gresh— During a recent trip to Djibouti, I was invited to a luncheon following a lecture I delivered on the western Indian Ocean at the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) local headquarters by a commander of Italy’s military base. Along with the Italians, my luncheon partners for this special
Toyin Falola and Raphael Chijioke Njoku— The subject of Black music and its African cultural roots is arguably one of the most engaging topics in contemporary Africana studies, cultural anthropology, and ethnomusicology. It is compelling because the record of successes attained by Black music artists across the world is one
Glenn Richardson— That the Field of Cloth of Gold did not bring in its wake a universal peace of Christendom to match the high-flown rhetoric of the occasion does not prove insincerity on every side, nor that such ambitions were not serious – as has been the traditional reason for
Matthew C. Klein— The distribution of income has macroeconomic consequences. Under certain conditions, income concentration (rising inequality) can make society as a whole more prosperous. Other times, such as in the past few decades, however, high or rising inequality makes everyone worse off than they otherwise would be. The trade
Kathryn C. Lavelle— The political boundaries that humans construct rarely confine disease. Thus, medicine is humanity’s most transnational endeavor. To understand systems of coordinating relations across states in accordance with certain principles of conduct, international relations uses the term multilateralism, which can be grounded in specific international organizations (IOs) or
Timothy William Waters— Why Remembering the Civil War Matters: Talking about Belonging in America How we remember the Civil War matters for thinking about our increasingly fragile union today—how we talk about identity, belonging, and leaving. The war seems to offer an obvious moral model. But that solution dissolves when
Timothy William Waters— What We (Mis-)Remember about Our Reasons for Fighting America is now so polarized that serious people wonder if the country will hold together. The Atlantic devoted its December issue to “How to Stop a Civil War”—and the Atlantic, founded in 1857, covered the actual Civil War. As
The greatest threats to America are often overblown, and the world is a much safer place than we’re led to believe. How does this happen and what can we do about it? Subscribe:Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Soundcloud
Lucas Kello— Every historical era begins with a revolution: it comes of age when revolution becomes the new normal. The Reformation began when a disaffected Augustinian friar asked, What authority has the Pope? It achieved its peak when the schism in Christianity became a source not of religious war but