Blog Posts by Subject: World History

The Ancient Greeks believed it. Christians believe it. So do Muslims, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Shintos, Sikhs, Mayans, Mormons, Witches, and few other spiritual groups.

Regardless of their spiritual differences and outlooks, they all believe that after life, there is a special place reserved for people that harm others or indulge in their own "sins" without remorse or repentance; thus their souls deserve this special invitation to hell or somewhere dark, agonizing and unpleasant in a state of foreverness or eternal damnation.

April is Immigrant Heritage Month. In New York City, April 17th to 24th is Immigrant Heritage Week. In honor of both celebrations of Immigrant Heritage, this blog will focus on the multiculturalism of the 7 train.

If you live in Queens, New York, and you work in midtown like me, there might be a possibility that you often take the MTA train to work, particularly the 7 line which runs from Main Street, Queens to Times Square, New York.

One of the most interesting things about this line is that it runs into various ethnic pockets of Queens. The train brings and transports a multicultural group of people from all over the world from Queens to Manhattan on a daily basis. Here 

"Life was difficult in Shanghai, but infinitely better than anything they had left behind. From lower-middle-class comfort, the Tobias family was reduced to poverty but not to starvation. There was always food, always something to eat, always shelter even when the Jewish community was ghettoized shortly after Pearl Harbor. Thus even under terribly difficult conditions Moses Tobias was able to take care of his family but under the Nazis the conditions of the Jews were far worse than merely 'terribly difficult.'

First published on February 1st, 1963, The New York Review of Books has been hailed to be one of the world's leading intellectual literary magazines. Known for its sharp and critical insights, commentaries and book reviews on culture, literature and current affairs, The NYRB has had much success in gaining attention from and written contributions by eminent scholars, intellectuals and writers such as Margaret Atwood, Noam Chomsky, Harold Bloom, John Updike, Gore Vidal, Joan Didion, and Mary Beard. The magazine was published in response to a printing strike in 1963 when The New York Times had ceased publication temporarily. This was a grand opportunity for 

The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially called The Games of the XXX Olympiad kicks off on July 27th in London, United Kingdom!

For about two weeks, the world will be watching their top athletes compete for medals of honor in a multi-sport event.  These sports range from boxing to archery. Some of the most competitive games to watch include swimming, gymnastics, cycling, weightlifting and basketball.

March is Women's History Month. This year, the theme of Women's History Month is Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. This blog post will explore how one can conduct research in women's and gender studies and history.

Perhaps no person in human history is more controversial than Jesus of Nazareth. The parable above (among many other well known ones) came from Jesus in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. In these quotes, Jesus emphasizes spiritual morality and responsibility; they also set up the foundation of Christianity. Despite the numerous teachings and sayings in the NT, Jesus is still an enigmatic figure shrouded in mystery; there is scant evidence about him that remains unclear, as he did not leave much behind regarding his own personal narrative and history. 

According to the BBC News, "Islam is widely considered Europe's fastest growing religion, with immigration and above average birth rates leading to a rapid increase in the Muslim population." There are currently over 15 million Muslims (Sunni and Shiite) living in Europe and Islam is currently the second largest religion in the world after Christianity.

This blog post will focus on NYPL’s rich collection on the history of Islam in Europe: past and present; the historical, political, cultural, and economic relationships between the states of Europe and the Middle East concerning multiculturalism, integration, segregation, gender and democracy.  

This week the New York Comic Con is in town! From October 13 through 16, the New York Comic Con will be held in the Javits Center in Midtown Manhattan. This annual convention is dedicated to comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, toys, video games, movies, and television!

At NYPL, we also celebrate comics and comic books. From the first issue of Captain America to Archie Comics, NYPL collects comics for leisure reading and for research. We also offer programs on anime shows and workshops on how to draw manga. Comics and comic books are one of the most pervasive and influential media forms of 20th-century popular culture. A survey of current scholarly 

April 2011 marks the 16th anniversary of National Poetry Month, and we shall embark on this sweet 16 with an appreciation of everyone's favorite Sufi mystical poet, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, otherwise known as Rumi (1207 - 1273 AD). Born in a remote Persian village in the region now known as Tajikistan, Rumi wrote poems of longing and ecstacy that made sweeping parallels between romantic and spiritual love. He was particularly fascinated with the use of music, dance, and poetry as the means for acheiving communion with the divine. We will discuss the following poem, which is a translation by Coleman Barks. Translated versions of poetry may risk appearing as a 

William Doyle, a writer in residence in the Library's Allen Room, thinks so.  His new book A Soldier's Dream explores the question of whether one young American soldier helped change the course of the Iraq War? 

What was the view of African Americans as reflected in early American music? Most histories of American music begin in the mid-19th century with minstrelsy or folk music (the Wikipedia entry is typical, beginning around 1850). It’s rare for studies on African American music to go back earlier, in part because there is so little.

But there is some.



In our work at the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, we regularly come across public school educators who believe that they are not supposed to talk about religion in the classroom. On the contrary, we feel that teachers can and should teach about religion.

Seeking further enlightenment into the city we call home, I recently took a class on the literary and cultural history of New York City. Among the many themes common to New York City novels we discussed was the portrayal of the city itself as a character with power to shape the lives of its citizens.

Global women's issues are the focus of Jefferson Market Branch's Monday night film series in March, which is National Women's History Month. The series, titled 21st-Century Women on Film, includes five movies made in the first decade of the 2000s, and examines contemporary challenges facing women across four continents.

Gotham. The Big Apple. The City of Light. Crossroads of the World. And my personal favorite: the City of Superlatives. These are all sobriquets that have been applied to New York City at one time or another.

The city that has insinuated its way into the hearts of so many travelers has inspired an incredible outpouring of travel guides and literature.

Travel writing at its best is half reporting and half myth-creating by the adventurer fortunate to visit an unknown, perhaps exotic destination. These treatises offer a snapshot of a particular place and period of time, capturing the local culture, quirks, cuisines and curiosities. Travel essays are excellent guides for an