Lighting Up Egyptian Style
Egypt has long been a land of wonder for advertising. In the March 1919 periodical ‘The Century’ the very first ad is for a brand of cigarettes so…
Author: dvarisco
Bunk is not Bunn: A Silly Claim about the Origin of Coffee
In a non-academic website called Atlas Obscura, there is an article with the entertaining title: “Before Drinking Coffee, People Washed Their Hands With It.” The article was written…
Food Sovereignty vs. Food Aid: Why Smallscale Farming Suffers
Traditional farming in al-Ahjur, Central Highlands (photography by Daniel Martin Varisco) The early major civilizations in the Middle East and Asia with their head start several millennia ago…
Lament for Yemen
Lament for Yemen Yemen,your body lies crushedbeneath the rubble that was the homewhere you were bornyour blood floods the landbreaks the terraced slopeswhere sorghum supplied every needyour br…
If only Abraham had known …
The Sacrifice of Abraham, by Andrea del Sarto, ca. 1527-1528 A fable, dedicated to Mark Twain and all who really understand what it means to suffer Abraham was…
More Lithographic Animals
As a fan of 19th century lithographs and steel engravings of images about the Middle East, I have enjoyed the images in Story of the Bible Animals by…
Views of al-Shihr on the Hadrami Coast
In 1991 while on a World Bank consultancy in Aden, I had an opportunity to visit al-Shihr on the Hadrami coast. Here are some scenes from that trip.…
Picturing Egypt a Century Ago
Cairo around 1920 In 1921 one of the many geographical/travel books published was the The Human Interest Library: Visuali?ed Knowledge (Chicago: Midland Press). In volume IV there is…
The Post-Ottoman Century: A View from 1917
The last Ottoman sultan, Mehmet VI, leaving his palace in Istanbul in 1922 The Ottoman Empire, firmly established after the conquest of Constantinople cum Istanbul in 1453 lasted…
Clothed-Minded Views on Burqinis
In late August, a Muslim woman on a beach in Nice, France was forced to remove her top and was allegedly fined for wearing a burqini, a modest…
Tsk, tsk Tesco
Commercial giants are playing fast and loose with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. These days it can be a big juicy Ramadan deal, wherever you live, when…