Vanessa Grossman- Marxist attitudes toward social change and historical action dominated the conversation within the French Left after 1945 and played a major role in shaping political and cultural. However,... READ MORE The post Building France’s Communist Landscape appeared first on Yale University Press ..read more

N.W. Collins— GET AGGRESSIVE, the bumble-bee colored sign orders—our van driver is taking a different way back to MacDill. Just a five-minute drive from yesterday’s leafy waterfront arrival, this route... READ MORE The post Behind the Scenes of U.S. Special Operations appeared first on Yale University Press ..read more

Hassan Abbas—  Throughout the history of the Muslim world, the way Islam has manifested and operated within various societies has taken many forms. Religious scholars and clergy have enjoyed positions of great influence across various regions through the rule of different dynasties, while the mystical appeal of Sufism or Irfan (spiritual knowledge) has made a lasting impression on the cultural landscapes of multiple Muslim nations. The case of South Asia is a particularly fascinating one, with these two currents penetrating deeply within society, meshing together intricately and, sometime ..read more

Timothy Garton Ash—  As our small group of European experts stood with President George W. Bush on the Truman balcony of the White House one fine May day in 2001, before our meeting to discuss his forthcoming trip to Europe, I casually noticed how planes from the nearby Reagan National Airport took off and climbed directly overhead. It never occurred to me that these planes could be used as terrorist weapons of mass destruction. In our subsequent discussion, the Iranian nuclear programme was briefly mentioned but Islamist terrorism did not feature. Instead, Bush identified China as the gr ..read more

This 248th Independence Day, also known as Fourth of July, marks the historic day American colonists declared their freedom from Great Britain and adopted the Declaration of Independence. Our Independence Day Reading List highlights the important role of Indigenous Peoples in the evolution of modern America, forgotten stories from America’s past, and revelatory biographies of the country’s founders. The Rediscovery of America Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History Martin Elvis A sweeping and overdue retelling of U.S. history that recognizes that Native Americans are essential to und ..read more

Evan Mawdsley— Sea power is back in the news. In April 2022, the cruiser Moskva was sunk by Ukrainian anti-ship missiles. Since last November, American and British warships have actively defended Red Sea shipping against missiles and drones launched from Houthi-held territory in Yemen. Meanwhile the Fujian, the first full-sized Chinese aircraft carrier, is currently undergoing her sea trials.  Global sea power has a long history. The two great navies have been, in succession, those of Britain and the United States. British maritime supremacy lasted for some 200 years, until the last years ..read more

Paul Kennedy— The soft, warm waters of the Mediterranean lapped gently against the sides of the two great warships anchored across from each other in Malta’s historic Grand Harbour in the summer of 1938. The fifteenth-century porticos of the Knights of St. John stood out behind the vessels. An Admiralty tug moved close by, and small boats occasionally went back and forth to the landings, but little else stirred. The world was quiet at that time, so it seemed, although not fully at peace. A keen-eyed observer might have noticed that across the top of the Hood’s and Barham’s giant gun-turrets la ..read more

Richard Brookhiser— History leans heavily on words—and that’s fine, says every publishing house. But there are other media that tell the story. The civil rights movement and America’s wars from Vietnam forward were impressed on us by photojournalism and television. World War II lives most vividly these days in movies, from Casablanca to Saving Private Ryan. The Civil War spoke through the performances of memorable orators (Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Lincoln’s old friend and Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens). But it also sang in “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the ..read more

Mike Jay— The first sustained interaction between the modern West and the hashish eaters of the Arab world occurred during Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, which culminated in a ban on the use of hashish by French troops in October 1800. Hashish, according to the decree by General Jacques-François Menou (Napoleon himself had already left the country) caused its users to ‘lose reason and fall into a violent delirium, which often leads them to commit excesses of all kinds’.1 No direct testimony was cited from hashish-using soldiers themselves, and it seems that Menou intended the ban to ali ..read more

N. W. Collins— “Every American has seen the shocking images from Somalia,” President George H. W. Bush commenced the live address from the Oval Office.1 Announcing the new mission to East Africa, President Bush presented the national objective: to lead a global coalition to ease the humanitarian crisis in the region, to serve as a catalyst for the community of nations to act. “I have given the order . . . to move a substantial American force into Somalia . . . As I speak a Marine amphibious ready group, which we maintain at sea, is offshore Mogadishu.” The coalition would set out to avert huma ..read more