Joshua Rosenblum > Recent Status Updates

"How are we to make sense of modernity - of the erosion of family, tribe, tradition, and religion by the forces of individualism, cosmopolitanism, reason, and science? So much depends on how we understand the legacy of this transition: whether we see our world as a nightmare of crime, terrorism, war and genocide or as a period that is blessed by unprecedented levels of peaceful coexistence."

"Most significantly, while the amir had eliminated the old regional elites as political players and gained power over their territories by military force, he did not alter rural Afghan society."

On Turko-Persia "the easiest way to draw this region's cultural boundaries is to include onlythose people who recognize and celebrate the pre-Islamic Nauruz holiday, which marks the beginning of the Persian New Year at the Spring equinox and exclude those (like the Arabs) who have never heard of this holiday."

Superfun for anyone like myself who grew up in the 80's.

"The differentiation of the Latino vote by ideology and income suggests that a similar process is occurring today; as one expert on Latino voting patterns put it, "The trajectory of Latino political development, however, mirrors earlier European immigrant experiences to a much greater degree than does the black American experience."