Notes on Tunisia
I spent almost three weeks in Tunisia, visiting the cities of Tunis, Bizerte, El Kef, Tozeur, Tataouine, El Jem, Sfax, Sousse, Monastir, Kairouan, and a few smaller towns in between. At first, I thought this post would be heavy on travel and light on history, but I got carried away on the background reading and…
Conquest of the Incas
I wrote about the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs five years ago during the early days of this blog. The conquistadors have since remained a fascination of mine, but I haven’t had a chance to go back to them until recently when I read Bernal Diaz’s The Conquest of New Spain and then The Last…
Notes on Trinidad and Tobago
I spent a week in Trinidad and Tobago (which I’ll call “TT”), mostly in Port of Spain (the capital) and the northern mountain region of Trinidad. My major source this time is the Area Handbook for Trinidad and Tobago commissioned by the U.S. Army in 1975 (which I’ll refer to as the “Handbook”). If I…
Notes on Guyana
Over the summer, I visited Guyana (pronounced Guy-on-uh), mostly in and around the capital of Georgetown. I had plans to see far more of the country but they didn’t come to fruition. Sometimes while writing these 25,000+ word posts, I feel the need to justify why anyone would want to read about a random country…
Notes on Tajikistan
Over the summer, I spent about two weeks in Tajikistan, mostly in Dushanbe (the capital) and various points along the Pamir Highway, which borders Afghanistan and later leads into Kyrgyzstan. This was my first time in central Asia and easily one of my most interesting trips in a while. Tajikistan is a fascinating mixture of…
Notes on El Salvador
In 1995, El Salvador had an intentional homicide rate of 139 per 100,000, the highest in the world and one of the highest rates recorded in modern history. Like all educated middle-class Americans, my core understanding of urban crime comes from The Wire, so for comparison, when the show took place, the homicide rate in…
Other Notes on West Africa
I’ve written about Nigeria, Benin, The Gambia, Mauritania, Ghana, Guinea, and the Ivory Coast in West Africa. I also traveled to Togo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Mali, but I don’t think I have enough interesting things to say about each one to justify a full post. So I’m going to do a quick,…
Notes on the Ivory Coast
I spent about ten days in the Ivory Coast, mostly in Abidjan, but also Yamoussoukro, Man, and Grand Bassam. (Note – The Ivory Coast is so French in culture and temperament that it insists on officially being called “Côte d’Ivoire.” But I don’t know how to make that accent on my keyboard and I don’t…
Notes on Guinea
I spent about nine days in Guinea, mostly in Conakry and being driven around the countryside. My notes here have a heavier bend toward personal experiences than usual, though I do go into the basics of Guinean history. As always, Martin Meredith’s Fate of Africa is a major source for me, but I also got…
Notes on Ghana
I spent 12 days in Ghana, specifically in Accra, Kumasi, Cape Coast, and Mole National Park. These are my notes, though this essay is more like Notes on Saudi Arabia with a bigger emphasis on the history of Ghana than my travel experiences. Ghana has a reputation for being the “easy mode” of West African…
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Matt Lakeman 