Rethinking the Idea of 'Christian Europe'. Kenan Malik's essay is awarded
3 Quarks Daily's Top Quark for politics & social science by judge
Stephen M. Walt: "Soldiers in today’s culture wars believe 'European civilization' rests on a set of unchanging principles that are perennially under siege—from godless communism, secular humanism, and most recently, radical Islam. For many of these zealots, what makes the 'West' unique are its Judeo-Christian roots. In this calm and elegantly-written reflection on the past two millenia, Malik shows that Christianity is only one of the many sources of 'Western' culture, and that many of the ideas we now think of as 'bedrock' values were in fact borrowed from other cultures. This essay is a potent antidote to those who believe a 'clash of civilizations' is inevitable—if not already underway—and the moral in Malik’s account could not be clearer. Openness to outside influences has been the true source of European prominence; erecting ramparts against others will impoverish and endanger us all."
posted by homunculus
on Dec 19, 2011 -
87 comments
Res Obscura is a blog by Ben Breen, a graduate student of early modern history, which styles itself "a compendium of obscure things." Indeed, even the asides are full of wonder, such as the one about Boy, the famous Royalist war poodle of the English Civil War, which is but a short addendum to
a post about witches' familiars. Here are some of my favorite posts,
Pirate Surgeon in Panama (and a related
post about 18th Century Jamaica),
vanished civilizations,
asemic pseudo-Arabic and -Hebrew writing in Renaissance art, and a series of posts about the way the Chinese and Japanese understood the world outside Asia in the early modern period (
Europeans as 'Other',
Europeans as 'Other,' Redux and
Early Chinese World Maps).
posted by Kattullus
on Sep 30, 2010 -
16 comments
Star forts from above (Google Maps links):
Alba Iulia,
Arad Fortress,
Almeida,
Bourtrange,
Coevorden,
Estremoz,
Goryōkaku,
Naarden,
Neuf Brisach,
Nicosia,
Palmanova,
Retranchement,
Terezín,
Willemstad.
More.
posted by nthdegx
on Jun 8, 2010 -
47 comments
