Since my Crusade and Jihad course is all over (except for the final exam and a lot of grading), next term posts inspired by the Islamic Civilization class will likely be more common. Since we will be talking about the last two centuries, a lot of posts may not qualify as "early history."
Here is one. HBO (at least in the USA and presumably Canada) will be showing a miniseries called House of Saddam. It focuses not on Iraq under Saddam, but on the tensions and conflicts of the ruling dynasty. Saddam Hussein as Tony Soprano. You can now go to the HBO site and see a trailer, and if you do you'll notice that Saddam and his associates all wear "international-Western" clothing and are surrounded by furnishing and buildings that could be anywhere in the modern world. At least visually there is nothing "Middle Eastern" about this gang. I don't doubt that this is accurate. Even Saddam Hussein as Tony Soprano is not a bad take.
