“Aden was the second busiest port in the world after New York in the 1950s.”
Read Cities in the Arabian Peninsula Introduction
Here are some photos taken in the late 19th Century of Aden (with many thanks to the Qatar Digital Library):
Arab
Comedy: Badr Saleh I Saudi
The 1.65 million followers on his Twitter account @BidzSaleh and hundreds of thousands of views on his youtube videos make Badr Saleh one of the most popular comedians in the Arab world.
His short comedic sketches make fun of the media and culture in the region, here is one of his recent videos critiquing the sorry state of Gulf television serials:
* In Arabic, no subtitles. If anyone has a translated version let us know.
Quote of the Day: From "Mapping Beirut: Toward a History of the Translation of Space from the French Mandate through the Civil War (1920–91)"
“Maps are traces left behind by the operation of power, and they reflect the production of spatial relations and exclusions. The way in which Beirut has been understood as a symbol first for the promise, then the failure, of a secular, liberal multi-ethnic city in the Arab Middle East is revealing both of the geography of Eurocentric historical imaginaries and of the strengths, incoherence, and frailties of modern forms of power”