Now comes (yet another!) book by one of the hordes of nation-security technocrats who dominate West Asian policymaking in Democratic administrations here in Washington. In this case, it is Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East, a recent book by Steven Simon, a guy who has worked as first … Continue reading An intriguing but frustrating window into Obama’s West Asia policy
The past year has brought several challenges for me. In early November 2021, I suffered the start of the retina problems that then continued to plague me for several months. (Comment from my first-born: “Mom, you know you’re not 30 years old any more”… Not terribly well-received by me at the time, though I’ve come … Continue reading Emulating Serena Williams: My career redirect
Throughout the present century, the corporate media here in the United States, and much of international discourse, has been in a furor over “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” Why, in 2003, the (G.W.) Bush administration even led an international coalition to go into the once-proud country of Iraq and, basically, destroy the whole country’s infrastructure and … Continue reading What’s so special about nuclear weapons? (Or, when did “WMDs” become a thing?)
By launching a broad military campaign against Ukraine today, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has also launched a strong assault against the norms of the sovereignty-based “world order” that has been in place since 1945– or even, one might say, since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Of course, the post-1945 order has been majorly contravened … Continue reading Where to now, the “world order”?
In 1653 CE, as for more than 200 years prior, the armed merchant ships of West European nations– now, in chronological order, Portugal, Spain, England, and Netherlands– were all roaming the world’s oceans and looting their plunder from non-European nations on every continent except Australia. In many places, now, the fighters aboard those ships had … Continue reading 1653: News from London, ‘New Amsterdam’, Scheveningen, & Kerala
1612 CE was an inflection point in the 500-year-long story of the emergence and maintenance of “Western” domination of the world. I am going to tell this story mainly by using the latest useful online source I have discovered, Sir William Wilson Hunter’s The European Struggle for Indian Supremacy in the Seventeenth Century (ESIS), which … Continue reading 1612: England beats Portugal in Surat, India, & Safavids/Ottomans
Some interesting events, eddies, and side-eddies in world history in 1599 CE. I think we have to start in Ireland: Elizabeth’s protege the Earl of Essex fails badly in Ireland Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex, born in 1565, had at one stage been quite a favorite of the queen, who was a distant … Continue reading 1599: English rout in Ireland (again); Persia; Kerala
We’ll start with the peace treaty concluded in 1590 between the Ottomans and Safavids, look at England’s still-sputtering attempts to establish colonies in North America, then look at a couple of ways in which the pursuit of empire placed costs on the citizens of societies pursuing empire (though still, of course, far far smaller than … Continue reading 1590: Ottomans, Safavids, costs of empire, etc
Well, we’ve recently taken a bit of a peek at the state of two capable non-Christian Empires that were growing and doing significant things in the mid-16th century CE: the Ottoman and Mughal empires. Today, with the 1576 CE passing of Shah Tahmasp in Safavid Iran it is time to look at the empire he … Continue reading Key developments of 1576 (& notes on Safavid Iran)
This is the 50th anniversary edition of the Project 500 Years daily bulletin. I have completed 10% of my self-assigned task! To mark the occasion I shall shortly– today or tomorrow– be issuing “Communique #2” for the project. But for now, this fascinating daily grind must continue. Readers: the main developments of 1570 CE: Ottoman … Continue reading Key developments of 1570
