Blogroll
- Critical Logistics
- Fabulous and weird website full of all sorts of info
- Geographical Imaginations
- International Transport Workers' Federation
- Middle East Report
- Object Lessons (on containers)
- Oceans Beyond Piracy
- Paleofutures – good tech stuff
- Port to port
- Progressive Geographies
- Sapping Attention
- STS Blog at Oxford
- The Funambulist
- Visual Complexity
Categories
- 2015 Trip 2016 Trip capital accumulation construction empire empire, imperialism & colonialism environment finance and insurance free ports/zones imperialism & colonialism infrastructure labour literature logistics media Melville Middle East militaries oil political economy ports readings seafaring shipping conditions ships the sea transport Travels Uncategorized war
Archives
Category Archives: Middle East
Interview with Philip Wohlstetter
For a couple of years now I have really wanted to attend the Red May socialist festival in Seattle, but sadly the timing (and the physical distance) have gotten in the way. This year, because of COVID-19, I ended up … Continue reading
Sinews of War and Trade website
The brilliant Rafeef Ziadah and Katy Fox-Hodess were instrumental in researching and building the project website, http://sinewswartrade.com/ The project website provides a wealth of information about maritime transportation and the surrounding infrastructures in the Arabian Peninsula. It mines both historic … Continue reading
BBC 3 Free Thinking interview with Matthew Sweet
Matthew Sweet of BBC Free Thinking was a brilliant reader of the book, having read closely and with an eye for fetching detail. We talked for about half an hour, and the interview can be heard here (my part of … Continue reading
Recent lecture: Tankers and Tycoons
Here is a link to a talk I have given a few times, most recently at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. It is a talk I am hoping to turn into an article, but which requires a bit more … Continue reading
Publication: A World Built on Sand and Oil
This is probably one of my favourite publications, in part because I was pushed and pushed by Lapham Quarterly‘s superb editors. The essay compares the trade in oil and sand today to think through maritime transportation, the building of infrastructures, the … Continue reading
Publication: The infrastructural power of the military
Drawing on extensive research in the archives of the US Army Corps of Engineers, this article again draws on my concomitant interest in militaries and infrastructure. “The infrastructural power of the military: The geoeconomic role of the US Army Corps … Continue reading
Domination, Dispossession and Struggle in the Making of Infrastructure and Logistics
Last night (20 February), Deb Cowen (Toronto), Charmaine Chua (Oberlin), Rafeef Ziadah (SOAS) and I had a conversation about the politics of infrastructure and logistics. Here is the recording for the event:
The poetry of medieval maritime travel
I have been reading Arab navigation manuals and travelogues, and there is such poetry in the navigation manuals in particular. It is the liminality of the navigation texts in particular – between art and science, familiar and wholly other. I … Continue reading
Posted in Middle East, seafaring, the sea, Travels, Uncategorized
2 Comments
Medieval Arab Naviation
“More interesting is the testimony of Ibn al-Mujawir who reports that in 626 A.H./1228-9 A.D. a ship arrived in Aden from Qumr (Comoros or Madagascar); the art of navigation of the people of Qumr impressed him as superior to that … Continue reading
Posted in Middle East, ports, seafaring, the sea, Travels, Uncategorized
Leave a comment
Logistic Routes and the Détente
Reading an interesting article on the alignment of USSE with Siad Barré’s regime in Somalia from 1969 onwards and it has some interesting tidbits having to do with military logistics and transport. The article by Gary Payton is standard Cold … Continue reading
Posted in logistics, Middle East, militaries, Uncategorized, war
Leave a comment
The Gamming 