A new four-part Netflix docuseries, “African Queens: Njinga,” tells the story of the 17th-century warrior Queen Njinga, who ruled over the territories of Ndongo and Matamba in present-day Angola. Cécile Fromont, a professor in the history of art in Yale’s...
In 1830, France forcibly and violently colonized Algeria, keeping it as a territory until 1962, when the North African nation gained its independence following one of the longest and most intense decolonizing wars of the 20th century. Until then, however...
Turning the pages of a manuscript copy of the Maʿrifetnāme, an 18th-century encyclopedia authored by the Ottoman scholar and Sufi poet İbrāhīm Ḥaḳḳī Efendi, can lead readers to seventh heaven and the depths of hell.
A copy of the beautifully illuminated...