What We Are Reading Today: The Kings of Algiers

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Updated 18 November 2023
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What We Are Reading Today: The Kings of Algiers

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Author: Julie Kalman

At the height of the Napoleonic Wars, the Bacri brothers and their nephew, Naphtali Busnach, were perhaps the most notorious Jews in the Mediterranean.
Based in the strategic port of Algiers, their interconnected families traded in raw goods and luxury items, brokered diplomatic relations with the Ottomans, and lent vital capital to warring nations.
For the French, British, and Americans, who competed fiercely for access to trade and influence in the region, there was no getting around the Bacris and the Busnachs. “The Kings of Algiers” traces the rise and fall of these two trading families over four tumultuous decades in the 19th century.
In this panoramic book, Julie Kalman restores their story — and Jewish history more broadly — to the histories of trade and high-stakes diplomacy in the Mediterranean during the Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath.
“The Kings of Algiers” brings vividly to life an age of competitive imperialism and nascent nationalism.

 


What We Are Reading Today: A City Is Not a Computer

What We Are Reading Today: A City Is Not a Computer
Updated 04 December 2023
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What We Are Reading Today: A City Is Not a Computer

What We Are Reading Today: A City Is Not a Computer

Author: Shannon Mattern

Computational models of urbanism—smart cities that use data-driven planning and algorithmic administration —promise to deliver new urban efficiencies and conveniences. Yet these models limit our understanding of what we can know about a city.

“A City Is Not a Computer” reveals how cities encompass myriad forms of local and indigenous intelligences and knowledge institutions, arguing that these resources are a vital supplement and corrective to increasingly prevalent algorithmic models.


Saudi researcher’s new book sheds light on 125 inscriptions

Saudi researcher’s new book sheds light on 125 inscriptions
Updated 04 December 2023
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Saudi researcher’s new book sheds light on 125 inscriptions

Saudi researcher’s new book sheds light on 125 inscriptions
  • The first covers Aliyat Najd and parts of the Arabian Peninsula, Najd and its borders, and the pilgrimage and trade routes passing through Aliyat Najd

RIYDH: A Saudi researcher has written a book shedding light on around 125 inscriptions from the first three Hijri centuries.

Saad bin Mohammed Al-Tuwaijri’s 219-page “Islamic Inscriptions from Aliyat Najd” is split into two sections.

The first covers Aliyat Najd and parts of the Arabian Peninsula, Najd and its borders, and the pilgrimage and trade routes passing through Aliyat Najd, while the second details inscriptions, and their interpretation.

Some of the roadside inscriptions help depict the religious, economic, and literature aspects of the period.

Al-Tuwaijri collected inscriptions from 26 locations – Al-Dawadmi, Al-Neer, Umm Rakah, Muraifik, Arwa, Al-Diniah, Muhayriqah, Shatab, Masel Al-Jumh, Turban, Al-Thainiyya, Muraykha, Al-Sabaan, Musayira Al-Thunduwa, Al-Khais, Al-Soudha, Al-Alam, Sokman, Smeghan, Samra, east of Masel Al-Jumh, Hellit, Dariyah, Moisel, Al-Yankir, and Al-Huwar.

He was able to categorize them based on their implications, such as religious, prayers, Qur’anic verses, literature, poetry, and memorial.

Based on the way the letters were drawn, he estimated that the inscriptions dated back to the first three Hijri centuries and from them was able to identify tribes that had settled or visited the areas.

The inscriptions provide an insight into the movements and economic activities of the region’s inhabitants, along with the natural resources found in the area.

Al-Tuwaijri faced several challenges including the expansive area, difficult terrain, and lack of studies on Islamic inscriptions in Najd.

 


What We Are Reading Today: Code Work

What We Are Reading Today: Code Work
Updated 03 December 2023
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What We Are Reading Today: Code Work

What We Are Reading Today: Code Work

Author: Hector Beltran

In “Code Work,” Hector Beltran examines Mexican and Latinx coders’ personal strategies of self-making as they navigate a transnational economy of tech work.

Beltran shows how these hackers apply concepts from the code worlds to their lived experiences, deploying batches, loose coupling, iterative processing (looping), hacking, prototyping, and full-stack development in their daily social interactions—at home, in the workplace, on the dating scene, and in their understanding of the economy, culture, and geopolitics.


What We Are Reading Today: Yuan: Chinese Architecture in Mongol Empire

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Updated 02 December 2023
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What We Are Reading Today: Yuan: Chinese Architecture in Mongol Empire

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  • “Yuan” presents the first comprehensive study in English of the architecture of China under Mongol rule

Author: Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt

The Yuan dynasty endured for a century, leaving behind an architectural legacy without equal, from palaces, temples, and pagodas to pavilions, tombs, and stages.
With a history enlivened by the likes of Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, this spectacular empire spanned the breadth of China and far, far beyond, but its rulers were Mongols.
“Yuan” presents the first comprehensive study in English of the architecture of China under Mongol rule.
Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt looks at cities such as the legendary Shangdu as well as the architecture the Mongols encountered on their routes of conquest.
She examines the buildings and monuments of diverse faiths in China during the period, from Buddhist and Daoist to Confucian, Islamic, and Christian, as well as unusual structures. Steinhardt dispels long-standing views of the Mongols as destroyers of cities and architecture across Asia, showing how the khans and their families built more than they tore down.

 


What We Are Reading Today: The Price of Collapse by Timothy Brook

What We Are Reading Today: The Price of Collapse by Timothy Brook
Updated 01 December 2023
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What We Are Reading Today: The Price of Collapse by Timothy Brook

What We Are Reading Today: The Price of Collapse by Timothy Brook

In 1644, after close to three centuries of relative stability and prosperity, the Ming dynasty collapsed. Many historians attribute its demise to the Manchu invasion of China, but the truth is far more profound. “The Price of Collapse” provides an entirely new approach to the economic and social history of China, exploring how global climate crisis spelled the end of Ming rule.
The mid-17th century witnessed the deadliest phase of the Little Ice Age, when temperatures and rainfall plunged and world economies buckled.
Timothy Brook draws on the history of grain prices to paint a gripping portrait of the final tumultuous years of a once-great dynasty.
A masterful work of scholarship, “The Price of Collapse” reconstructs the experience of ordinary people under the immense pressure of unaffordable prices as their country slid from prosperity to calamity and shows how the market mediated the relationship between an empire and the climate that turned against it.