During World War I, English officer Thomas Edward 'T.E.' Lawrence sets out to unite and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes to fight the Turks.
Do not conquer what you cannot defend — LessWrong
Once upon a time there was a great king. He ruled his kingdom with wisdom and economically literate policies, and prosperity followed. Seeing this, t…
Remote Origins: Translation, Genealogy, and Alterity in Medieval Castile (1252-circa 1390)
This dissertation analyzes selected examples of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century written culture to show their engagement with the religious alterity of Islam as an integral part of the origins of the kingdom of Castile. Following an interdisciplinary methodology, it addresses how medieval ideas about astrology, geography, history, medicine, race, and religion participated in creating discourses about origins that recognized the intellectual and political authority of al-Andalus. It argues that early Castilian vernacular texts conceptualized the translation of Arabic sources as an instrument for creating, transforming, and superseding the alterity of Islam while recognizing the cultural and political authority of Andalusi traditions. The first chapter serves as an introduction explaining the historical and theoretical framework of the dissertation. To do so, it provides an overview of Castilian ideas about genealogy, historiography, authority, and translatio, and translation. Then, through close reading and ample historicization, chapters two, three, and four analyze the impact of Andalusi textual traditions, cultural practices, and human population in three interrelated fields of medieval science, literature, and history. Chapter 2 explores the political implications of King Alfonso X’s (r. 1252-1284) dedication to the translation of Arabic sciences by focusing on the translation of a treatise of astrology titled Libro de las cruzes (1259). The chapter traces the cultural and political context that accompanied the transmission of the book in al-Andalus alongside the content of its Arabic and Castilian prologues. In light of ideas about the transference of knowledge (translatio studii) shared by Christian and Muslim scholars, I conclude that deployment of a twofold origin in the Libro de las cruzes illustrates the strategies and motivations of Alfonso X’s broader engagement with Arabic sources. The third chapter turns to the early fourteenth-century romance Libro del caballero Zifar with a double focus on its forged origin as a translation from caldeo (Chaldean) and the prominence of cursed lineages. Regarding lineage, the chapter explores the representation of exemplary virtues by the protagonists of the romance as enacting ideas about the transformable character of lineage and the capabilities of the individual to unmake inherited negative traits. Likewise, the textual strategy of the forged translation enables the inclusion of Arabic and Asian referents at the origin of a profoundly Christian text. In chapter 4, literature meets historiography in the analysis of the Crónica de Flores y Blancaflor. Being the result of intertwining a Castilian chronicle—Alfonso X’s Estoria de Espanna—and a French romance, this text narrates the love story between an Andalusi Muslim prince and the daughter of a captive Christian noble. The chapter focuses on Berta, the captive woman, to show the implications of her decision to nurture Flores and Blancaflor with her milk. Considering Christian and Muslim ideas about milk and wet nursing along with the tenets of Castilian historiography, the chapter shows the limits of dominant ideas about dynastic origins among the Christian elites of Castile while evidencing the existence of an alternative discourse that—coming from within Castilian historiography—incorporates maternal and non-Christian kinship as an essential part of the origins and possibilities of the kingdom. A short final chapter serves as a conclusion, suggesting paths for expanding the results of this dissertation within and the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries covered by its contents.
Army survivors of deadly attack in Kuwait dispute Pentagon's account, say unit "was unprepared" to defend itself
Survivors of an Iranian attack that killed six U.S. service members have disputed the Pentagon's description of events and said their unit in Kuwait was left dangerously exposed.
Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part I: Why They Fight
This week I want to try something a little different. Rather than taking apart a particular fantasy military system, I thought I might try to lay out a more general sense of how military systems te…
War in the Smartphone Age | Hurst Publishers
An essential guide to understanding war and information on today’s data-saturated battlefields—from Ukraine to Gaza and beyond.
REVIEW: Pauline Hopkins' Contending Forces should be leading the literary canon - The Maroon
Contending Forces tells the story of a Black family both before and after slavery ended in the United States.
Armies Seize Territory. Empires Seize Language. | Jason G. Butterfield | Offprint
What renaming a lake tells us about sovereignty, and the normalization of ownership
The Air Defense Array That Shielded Iraqi Kurdistan During Iran War
The majority, though not all, of these attacks were intercepted by an array of air defense systems installed by the U.S. and Britain in Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital, Erbil.
We Are Starting to Sound Like the Thing We Built - Ewan’s Blog
“Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors.“
‘I’m fighting two wars. One against the Russians. And one inside myself.’
A drone pilot and her all-women unit are waging a new kind of warfare on Ukraine’s eastern front
Miscellanea: The War in Iran
This post is a set of my observations on the current war in Iran and my thoughts on the broader strategic implications. I am not, of course, an expert on the region nor do I have access to any spec…
Internet History Sourcebooks: Medieval Sourcebook
Home | Ancient History Sourcebook | Medieval Sourcebook | Modern History Sourcebook | Byzantine Studies Page Other History Sourcebooks: African | East Asian | Indian | Islamic | Jewish | Lesbian and Gay | Science | Women's | Global
From Popular Front to Cold War: The Interracial Left and the International Workers Order, 1930-1954, paperback | Elissa Sampson
From Popular Front to Cold War tells the story of the International Workers Order (IWO), an organization founded in 1930 to provide life, burial, and health insurance to its
An interactive introduction to the terrific experience of rendering Arabic typography and its technical debt
This post was discussed in Lobsters and HackerNews
Game of Thrones
Seven noble families fight for control of the mythical land of Westeros. Friction between the houses leads to full-scale war. All while a very ancient evil awakens in the farthest north. Amidst the war, a neglected military order of misfits, the Night's Watch, is all that stands between the realms of men and icy horrors beyond.
