Category: Countries

Please don’t make me reread Ambrose; it’s a big book. But yes. Repeated snubs by Ike, about Nixon making VP at all, about being renominated as VP, about actually supporting Nixon’s presidential run. Culminating in the famous “shit or get off the pot” outburst by Nixon. Repeated jabs that Nixon had no executive experience, so […]

I’m not a fan, though I did appreciate Sıddäk Ähuja’s answer to Was there anything good about Joseph Stalin? Taking a line from Testimony (1988 film): he inspired Shostakovich. In a way that you wouldn’t wish on anyone. Answered 2017-01-12 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/Was-there-anything-good-about-Joseph-Stalin/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

I know that Greeks obsessed with Latin American telenovelas, and now obsess with Turkish soaps. My uninformed guess: Many countries’ romantic dramas feature overt sentimentality and melodrama. They spend a lot of time emphasising the romantic relationship between protagonists, and they do so overtly—music, longing gazes, dialogue. American soaps feature plenty of melodrama too. But […]

https://www.quora.com/Are-American-states-well-known-in-other-countries I live in Australia, and I have not taken an especial interest in the states of India. So. Data point. States I’ve heard of. Assam. Because tea. (Also, in my case, because I know a linguist that worked on Assamese languages.) Goa. Because Portuguese colony. And something to do with hippies. Gujarat. Because, um, […]

Some good answers here, but none giving the obvious reference: Jared Diamond, Guns Germs and Steel. It was despite (mediaeval) Christianity: Byzantium stopped all science very early. The Islamic world was into Science before Christendom was, and the switches in both worlds were not about the religion, but about interpretations of the religion. As for […]

Mariam Als, thank you for your A2As. I truly am not qualified to answer this, and I hope Dimitris Almyrantis will. Irene Avetyan, I’m looking at you too. This is more to provoke an answer out of them, and it’s not rooted in any great understanding of Ottoman or Turkish history. (That, and I’m cleaning […]

Mehrdad, canım, I don’t know. I will guess, but whatever I guess, Dimitris Almyrantis will guess better. Here goes. The usual answer is, Iran is at a crossroads of civilisations. Maybe. But you know, so is Greece, so is Turkey, so is Russia, so is Spain. In itself, that’s not actually an answer; it’s only […]

Matthew Franklin, Jakub Handlíř and Tomas Rocha Martins are completely correct. If you’re looking for an equivalent to ISIS in the 13th or 14th century, you’re looking for an agent that is not abiding by the then extant international rules of conduct, and that is reviled universally, by coreligionists and outsiders alike, as being beyond […]

The world was blessed, that a US president should take so much interest in foreign policy, and stake his posterity on it. The world was cursed, that Nixon was that president, and he squandered so much of his foreign policy on political point-scoring. From my reading: His biggest legacy was opening up China, and he […]

Ambivalence Hegemon New birth of freedom Individualism gone berserk Lofty ideals Opportunity Smugness Some of my best friends are American 🙂 With reference to Rita Jóñer’s answer to What do you think when you hear the words, “United States”? I get stumped by the US states too. In fact, here’s my excuse to expose myself […]