A century ago today, one of the great crimes in modern history began to unfold in the ancient city of Istanbul. In the middle of that Saturday night, Ottoman police rounded up the leading figures of their capital city’s Armenian community. One of them, an influential bishop named Grigoris Balakian, survived to leave behind this account: We arrived … More The 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
As I mentioned in a former post, I just wrapped up a class on the history and politics of the Middle East, a class I have taught for a number of years now. One of its goals is for students to wrestle with the complexities of revolutionary movements in the Middle East, the most recent and particularly … More How to Spark Islamic Revolution
Here… • Games like the one my Minnesota Twins played yesterday are the reason that I might need to rely on the Amish to help me feel good about the national pastime this season. • A day-late celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., dead forty-five years as of this past Thursday. • Dabbling in the … More That Was The Week That Was
Ninety-four years today, the Armistice of Mudros ended the First World War in the Middle East. It was signed aboard a British battleship harbored at a Greek island, by an English admiral and a minister of a government that would cease to exist within four years, an indirect result of the armistice he signed. That … More Ottoman Nostalgia
The Pietist Schoolman 