Spaniards often feel surprised when they visualise the renowned drawing reproduced below, ascribed (erroneously as it seems, but that is another story) to Lucas Cornelisz van Kunst, the successful Dutch painter of the Tudor era. A brief glance to John of Gaunt’s portrait suffices to notice the distinctive coat of arms of the English members of t…[Read more]

The historical narrative of water purity tends to chart a process of secularisation with an
increasing importance on cleanliness. We suggest otherwise – that rhetorically at least, water
has never been secularised. Moral impurity and water contamination have a long and
interrelated history. Even before the connection had been made between c…[Read more]

The historical narrative of water purity tends to chart a process of secularisation with an
increasing importance on cleanliness. We suggest otherwise – that rhetorically at least, water
has never been secularised. Moral impurity and water contamination have a long and
interrelated history. Even before the connection had been made between c…[Read more]

The historical narrative of water purity tends to chart a process of secularisation with an
increasing importance on cleanliness. We suggest otherwise – that rhetorically at least, water
has never been secularised. Moral impurity and water contamination have a long and
interrelated history. Even before the connection had been made between c…[Read more]

The historical narrative of water purity tends to chart a process of secularisation with an
increasing importance on cleanliness. We suggest otherwise – that rhetorically at least, water
has never been secularised. Moral impurity and water contamination have a long and
interrelated history. Even before the connection had been made between c…[Read more]

Audio & slides of a paper given at the Colloquium on Avicenna and Avicennisms held at SOAS, University of London, 6–7 June 2014. http://meti.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/home/meti-info/2014-avicenna/ © Gregor Schwarb, 7 June 2014

Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901), a Sabian of Ḥarrān, and his descendants remained in their ancestral religion for six generations. Why did they persist despite pressure to convert? This article argues that religious self-identification as a Sabian could be a distinct advantage in Baghdad’s elite circles. It focuses on Thābit’s great-grandson Abū…[Read more]

“Luke’s complex portrayal of ‘the Jews’ in general, and of the Pharisees in particular, reflects a situation in which the lines between Judaism and Christianity were not yet clearly drawn.”

Pre-publication draft (not intended for circulation or citation) of a contribution to a forthcoming edited volume on Narsai of Nisibis. Any comments, suggestions, or corrections are welcome (email to jwalters@rc.edu).

War Studies Primer is an introductory course on the study of war and military history. It is available at http://www.warstudiesprimer.org under a Creative Commons license.

Computer Histories is an introductory course on the history of computing. It is available at http://www.computerhistories.org under a Creative Commons license.

Between January 1969 and the summer of 1975, NASA received over eight million letters and petition signatures supporting the right of American astronauts to free religious expression in space. Prompted by Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s complaints about the reading of Genesis during the flight of Apollo 8, the petition campaign points to the complex…[Read more]

This short piece reflects on the reception of the reissue of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ in 2016, and serves as an end piece to a collection of articles on ‘Mein Kampf’ curated by the German Historical Institute, London, in 2017. The collection appears in the Bulletin of the German Historical Institute and can be accessed in its entirely on the…[Read more]

During the Thirty Years’ War, John Taylor served at the Habsburg courts in Brussels, Madrid, and Vienna. Although he figured prominently in Charles I’s secret Habsburg foreign policy during the war, published information on Taylor is sparse. His story is especially compelling given his own and his family’s connections with Continental Catho…[Read more]

During the seventeenth century, the expansion of central administration and the confessionalization of court patronage offered able and educated Catholic commoners and lesser nobles increased opportunities for successful careers in the Imperial service and, consequently, for upward mobility. This study will trace the rise of one such man, Clement…[Read more]

Tibet – end of the legend

This article argues that during World War I, the Syrian and Lebanese periodical press in the American mahjar created new space for transnational political activism. In São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and New York City, diasporic journalists and political activists nurtured a new nationalist narrative and political culture in the press. In a public…[Read more]

Established in 1920, al-Nadi al-Homsi in Sao Paulo, Brazil was a young men’s club devoted to ˜Syrian patriotic activism and culture in the American mahjar (diaspora). Founded by a transnational network of intellectuals from Homs, the fraternity committed itself to what it saw as a crucial aspect of Syrian national independence under Amir Fa…[Read more]

For half a million ‘Syrian’ Ottoman subjects living outside the empire, the First World War initiated a massive political rift with Istanbul. Beginning in 1916, Syrian and Lebanese emigrants from both North and South America sought to enlist, recruit, and conscript immigrant men into the militaries of the Entente. Employing press items, cor…[Read more]

The debate over whether the creation of the New Model Army represented continuity or change in the supply systems of parliamentarian armies has suffered from a lack of detailed research on the Earl of Essex’s army. This article begins to redress the balance by examining the supply of horses and saddles to the armies of Essex, Manchester, Waller, a…[Read more]