Category Archives: Politics

Laissez-Surge

Posted on January 15, 2007 by Timothy Burke

One of the strangest things that people say about wars like Vietnam or Iraq is that they are lost by the meddling of politicians in military decisions, by the intrusion of politics into war, by concern for political outcomes over … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 11 Comments

My Wicked, Wicked Ways

Posted on January 8, 2007 by Timothy Burke

I’m back from both my holiday travels and from a post-holiday trip to Atlanta to attend the American Historical Association meetings. I have a confession: in Atlanta, I did one of the most perverse, inexplicable things that I’ve ever done … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Politics | 8 Comments

War and Peace, Horn of Africa Edition

Posted on December 14, 2006 by Timothy Burke

One of the major stories out of Africa that almost no one seems to know about is the political, military and social history of the Horn of Africa in the last three decades. This is despite the fact of Black … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Politics | 9 Comments

The Unbearable Weight of Reference

Posted on November 20, 2006 by Timothy Burke

Playing World of Warcraft a month or so back, I was in what people call a “pick-up group”, some strangers who had agreed to team up to accomplish a specific short-term goal. The group chat channel was all business until … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Popular Culture | 5 Comments

The Bérubéan Moment

Posted on November 9, 2006 by Timothy Burke

The general argument and specific claims of Michael Berube’s What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? are as comfortable for me as a well-worn chair. I’ve been reading them at his blog for some time, adopting and using many of his … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Politics | 46 Comments

Making Elections Work

Posted on November 7, 2006 by Timothy Burke

I have to say that my allergy to conspiracy theories in general is starting to get a healthy dose of antihistamine when it comes to elections in the United States. There’s little things to be irritated by: we just switched … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 16 Comments

Free Speech Kabuki

Posted on November 2, 2006 by Timothy Burke

There’s a lot of discussion on campus this year about the annual “chalkings” that coincide with Coming Out week. They’ve been controversial before (as one student puts it in the campus newspaper, it’s a “predictable moment” in the calendar). If … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Politics | 8 Comments

Numbers Games

Posted on October 17, 2006 by Timothy Burke

I’m not going to go over the existing disputes about the methodology or findings of the Lancet study on civilian casualties in Iraq. That’s been done at a great many other blogs. I’d like to instead talk about how I … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 19 Comments

It’s a Fair Cop

Posted on October 3, 2006 by Timothy Burke

Norm Geras objects to a recent post of mine, and I think by and large his objections are justified. First, my original entry does something that I really don’t like to see from bloggers, whether it’s directed at me or … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Politics | 31 Comments

Tarnished City in a Swamp

Posted on September 29, 2006 by Timothy Burke

A short time ago (but it feels very much longer than that), I wrote an essay for a journal called Global Dialogue about the African Union, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and Thabo Mbeki’s “African renaissance”. One of … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Politics | 37 Comments