Rereading The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914: The Mobilization of Radical Ideologies in the Arab World
Northeastern University’s own Ilham Khuri Makdisi published the groundbreaking work The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914 last April, less than a year before the international community rested its gaze on the rapid ideological revolution and protest movement that has swept the region in the last few months. Rereading Khuri-Makdisi’s work in […]
The Winter Uprisings: An Awakening for All
The cascade of pro-democracy protest across the Middle East presumably should not have caught the West off guard, but it did. The United States spends billions of dollars each year supporting Arab governments and on a vast intelligence service dedicated to better informing officials about on goings in the region. Regardless of the United States’ […]
The Tunisian Spark: Triggering the Fourth Wave of Democratization
Mohamed Bouazizi was a college graduate and yet at twenty-six years old he found himself selling fruit on the side of the street to support his mother, uncle and five siblings in their hometown of Sidi Bouzid. According to a report by the New York Times,[i] a municipal inspector, Faida Hamdy, seized Bouazizi’s goods because […]
The Microfinance Split: Reharnessing the Good Micro Loans
Poverty can be eradicated by 2050 as proposed by the Millennium Development Goals, according to Muhammad Yunus. Founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, he believes that microcredit is the answer. Lending small amounts of money to people who are too poor or marginalized to qualify for bank loans in order to further their small businesses […]
Indeed, A Part of America: Americans Who Believe in Islam
“I should like to assure you, my Islamic friends, that under the American Constitution, under American tradition, and in American hearts, this Center, this place of worship, is just as welcome as could be a similar edifice of any other religion. Indeed, America would fight with her whole strength for your right to have here […]
Un Prophéte: 2009 French Film
The romantic allure of Paris often obscures American perceptions of French film. French cinema can be as gritty and moody as that of any other country. In recent years, critical favorites, such as Marion Cotillard’s Oscar-winning performance in La Vie en Rose (140min, 2007) and the cult hit Amélie (122min, 2001), have allowed French movies […]
The Voice of the Dolphins, and Other Stories
The Voice of the Dolphins, by Leo Szilard, brings into question the many sociopolitical paradigms exposed at the height of the Cold War, since shuffled behind a red curtain stained with shapes of hammers and sickles. The hardheaded diplomacy of the 1960s clouds the vital questions that the ideological struggle was essentially based on: the […]
The Politics of Sound
Words have never been enough. While the brain can process thousands of feelings and sensations every minute, spoken language will forever be a bottleneck that retards the sharing or expression of sensations from one person to the next. Think about it – how often are you left struggling to relay a thought to a colleague […]
Bitter Sweets: The Problem of Child Labor in the Cocoa Industry
Ten-year-old Madi, whose family cannot afford to send him to school, spends his days hacking away at cocoa pods with a machete. Such conditions are common in the Ivory Coast’s farms where 43% of the world’s chocolate is produced. Although United States chocolate companies passed a protocol to get rid of “the worst forms of […]
What’s Really Wrong with the Middle East?
In What’s Really Wrong with the Middle East, author Brian Whittaker has taken an unconventional and ambitious look into authoritarianism what is not so much the Middle East but the Arab world. The book asks: why is political order in so many Arab countries dysfunctional; why does political and religious violence spring from the region […]