The study of the ancient Persians is, as Richard Stoneman rather artfully puts it, a thriving business. So far from ruling over a ‘forgotten empire’, as a British Museum exhibition unhappily described it a decade back, the Achaemenid emperors – from Cyrus the Great to Darius III – ruled the fastest-growing, largest and most culturally […]
There is a certain set of topics New Scientist calls ‘fruitloopery’ that experience tells us should be avoided at all costs. The older we become, the more glumly certain we are that we have heard it all before, whether it’s UFOs, Bigfoot, psychic phenomena or even just plain old homeopathy. Atlantis is firmly on this […]
Genghis Khan made the news a dozen years ago when a team of geneticists at the University of Oxford led by Tatiana Zerjal noticed a curious pattern in the distribution of an unusual Y chromosome among Asian males. Zerjal’s team suggested that this genetic variation could be traced back to a common ancestor. They located […]
In everything except husbands, and especially in literature, my wife’s tastes are exacting. I have devoted years to the effort of crafting an opening sentence good enough to get her to read on. ‘May I,’ I asked experimentally, ‘read you the opening of Peter Frankopan’s new book, to see what you think of it?’ My […]
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Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm