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Latest from the Blog
Notes on Afghanistan
In Fall 2025, I spent three weeks in Afghanistan travelling through Kabul, Bamiyan, Ghazni, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-i-Sharif. The following is a recounting of the interesting parts of my travels and readings on the country. By far the best source I’ve found for understanding Afghanistan and particularly the Taliban is Taliban: The Power of Militant…
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…
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Matt Lakeman 