Cross-cultural “Stuff”
Stranger Magic
I’m fascinated by the Arabian Nights. By the stories themselves and the way they fit together into their complicated frame story. By their transformation from Arabic street tales to a established position in the Western canon. By their echoes in Western culture, from the Romantic poets to Disney. So I was delighted to get a…
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History Carnival #108-April, 2012
Image from the Library of Congress Collection Welcome to the Carnival!* In the spirit of April 1st, I’ve sought out blog posts from the last month** that celebrate the foolish, the topsy-turvy, and the quirky. Blog posts that stand historical truths on their head, or at least gives them a little shake. No clown noses.…
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Al-Khwarizmi Does the Math
Quick: multiply DVII by XVIII. Before you could work the problem you translated it into Arabic numbers didn’t you? The person you can thank, or blame, for your ability to multiply and divide is the mathematician and astronomer Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (ca. 783-847), whose name lives on in a mangled form as “algorithm. (Honest. …
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