Worlds Blown Apart, 1937–1949

The years 1937–1949 were a pandemic of global violence with Hitler, Mussolini, Togo, and Stalin leading the way. Each had goals that drove them. Hitler wanted to build an Aryan empire using land that stretched from Germany to the Ural Mountains as Lebensraum; and he wanted to destroy the Jews and others from whom he took offense. Mussolini wanted power and an empire in northeast Africa. Though Togo was not a ruler like the others, all Japanese leaders wanted to defeat and humiliate China and become the East Asian superpower. Stalin wanted to eliminate his enemies and to initiate military successes that would make the Soviet Union a major nation and prove that communism was a viable foundation for a state. Hitler, Mussolini, and Togo lost their wars; Stalin was an ally after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler’s most heinous legacy was the Holocaust.

Silvia Bruzzi, Islam and Gender in Colonial Northeast Africa: Sittī ʿAlawiyya, the Uncrowned Queen

Book Review

RELIGION, ELITES AND SANCTIONS IN NORTHEAST AFRICA: REGIONAL IMPACTS OF SUPERPOWER MESSIANISM

The article exposes the regional context of geostrategic rivalry between the United States and China in Northeast Africa (NEA) against the backdrop of the emerging formation of a new bipolar world order and the messianic ambitions of the superpowers. The author predicts a significant increase in NEA’s geo-economic and strategic importance, due to the dominant vectors of global development and aspects of national interests of each of their superpowers. The article offers a detailed analysis of the evolution of NEA’s confessional space through the last 50 years and of the role of religious factors in the superpower rivalry in the region. The author arrives to the conclusion that the ruling, business and religious elites of the region have taken a wait-and-see attitude in the battle unfolding between the superpowers and do not want to unambiguously associate themselves with either side.

The Napatan Neo-Kushite State 2

After Aspelta’s reign (ca. 600–580 bce), for almost two centuries, the Nubian situation was relatively stable. The northern states, first Saite, then Persian, offered little temptation for revanchist moves from Kush, nor did either have an interest in expanding southward. Near the end of the 5th century bce, there is a revival of records by Amannote-erike which continued for more than a century. While these record events in the life of a state under pressure, they reveal much about its geopolitical situation, as well as its social and economic life. They also offer insight into the organization of life in adjacent parts of Northeast Africa, and the scale of activity. Long stretches of Nile Valley between Aswan and the confluence of the Niles have dispersed opportunities for occupation and enclaves in the cataracts were a vulnerability that played a major role in developments of the last century or so of the Napatan Period.