HANNAH ARENDT

Hannah Arendt: German Jewish Philosopher

The Human Condition
Between Past and Future

On Revolution

Men in Dark Times

Crises of the Republic

The Life of the Mind

I found this DVD at the library about a woman I had never heard of named Hannah Arendt. I grew up with a family named Arendt, but we pronounced it like one word “aren’t” . It seems the original is two syllables, like A-rend(t). 

She was an academic tenured professor and wrote about a lot of ideas, but the movie’s story was about her most controversial work called Eichmann in Jerusalem. It had the usual effect on my historical knowledge. It expanded it in a highly relatable format that I love (movie investments are short and sweet, if the writing or the acting or the cinematography is good, and great if it all comes together!) 

Like too many religious critics, her work was often reduced to controversy by word of mouth and reactions based on superficial knowledge instead of actually reading the book! Even the revised audiobook I obtained had a long preamble trying to tell me what I should think about it. It gave context that I better understood than most starting the book, because I had watched the film. Still, it bothered me so I skipped ahead to make up my own mind.

The movie director features actual footage of Eichmann on trial, which is brilliant, and manages, like many European and occasionally Quebec films, to flip back and forth between German, English, and Hebrew casually, spanning her life and languages.

I can’t say yet if the script does justice to her words, and I suspect she has a lifetime of other thoughts that I do not have knowledge of that the screenwriter, as a university professor, most likely does. I do, however, like the way she thinks, making up her own mind, no matter how the cards are laid on the table.

From what I gather, the trial, set in Israel, and made possible with Mossad agents and President Ben Gurion’s involvement skewed the public from the get-go. I have very little knowledge of international law and how it works for crimes against humanity, but (spoiler alert) Eichmann is hanged in short order. 

So far, Hannah Arendt, of the film, is not sure this is the right outcome, which to me is a brave position for a Jewish woman who was interred in France for over a year during the war to have.

Afterwards, I found that McGill library lends the audiobook, and I did errands lost in the first three chapters of her book. I have lots more to learn.

What she clarified for me was the definition of totalitarianism. I don’t think I really understood what it meant before. She defines it as being separate from “despotism, tyranny, and dictatorship”, all more easily understood concepts. This is how she made the much necessary distinction: that totalitarianism “applied terror to subjugate mass populations, not just political adversaries”. 

She is quoted as saying “Niemand hat das Recht zu gehorchen” [No one has the right to obey]. She is credited (although may have later regretted) coining the phrase “banality of evil”, which is in the subtitle of the book on Eichmann’s trial. It was really an astute observation that given the right bureaucratic pressures, we could all be capable of systemic evil. Replace evil with racism or sexism, and it’s a little easier to see.

There is a lecture she gives that I will quote here (subtitled movie English may not be the perfect translation, but with my rudimentary German skills, it seemed to track well):

“Western tradition wrongly assumes that the greatest evils of mankind arise from selfishness. But in our century, evil has proven to be more radical than was previously thought. And now we know that the truest evil, the radical evil, has nothing to do with selfishness or any such understandable sinful motives. Instead, it is based on the following phenomenon; making human beings superfluous as human beings.”

She was talking about the concentration camp system, designed to  convince the prisoners that they were unnecessary before they were murdered. Work doesn’t free you. (ARBEIT MACHT FREI). No matter what you do in that system, it doesn’t matter. The system of the concentration camp teaches you that everything you do is senseless.

In this way, “absolute evil is when it exists, whether humans are in the system, or not”. I would argue (especially in light of the Ukrainian Russian war currently) that all humans are harmed by this evil. Yes, those in it who are not the victims have it better, but they too pay a price to the evil inherent in such systems of systemic racism and dehumanization. For me, the problem I cannot wrap my head around is; how then do you dismantle such a system without too much cost to the humans already serving as cogs in the wheel?

Arendt criticized the cooperation of the Jewish leaders as well as the failure to resist. I imagine my own life at that moment would feel incredibly valuable at the train station before you board the train, even though that would be the best place to revolt, before you are herded towards the gas chamber, or worse. I am not as sure as she was that this obviously the right choice. It must be incredibly hard to risk you life now when everything is screaming  for the need to survive until later. 

What are the options between resistance (which survival instinct may make impossible) and cooperation? 

Another problem I have is that this feels familiar. With no intention to diminish the concentration camp system level of evil, it feels like so many systems in which we humans play the cogs is rigged in such a way that evil exists. It is hard to see how to change it from within. The temptation is to revolt and dismantle, but no one can do that alone. 

So what is my personal responsibility? Eichman is criticized and condemned to death for upholding the rules of a system that ultimately lead to harm for others. How do you know if you are are doing your job for an evil end? If your terrorist cell just gets the victims to the murderers, and you don’t know the murderers, are you responsible? If you follow orders, and are disconnected to the next chain of events, should you blame yourself?

My thoughts are always to the mid-COVID pandemic health care system around me, and how do I find a way to change things that fail our patients. Patients and health care workers seems to be experiencing record high amounts of moral and personal distress in a system that seem, like Eichmann’s work, leads to inherent evils by making it so difficult to do the best by the patient because it is often at cross purposes with the efficiency of the system. 

It is so easy to “just do your job” and go home so overwhelmed and exhausted that you just want not to think about it. But years later, even if it was the job that never allowed time to consider, discuss, evaluate and criticize what the outcome was, aren’t you still to blame?

Those of us who try at every interaction to keep it human can succeed for a beautiful moment. It seems clear to me, however, that these acts of humanity are like cogs, being worn down and crushed again and again under the wheel, which feels no cost to our use and wear. We have to see this, and figure out how to change the way the wheel works. We can’t accept the consumption of our humanity and energy as the price to pay for the system to work. It is clear that right now, don’t win as a rule, then, but as an exception. We need to find a way to change the system so that it spares the cogs and the wheels turn without crushing those in the very system they were designed to serve.

STEWART HALL EXHIBITION

rom the permanent exhibition called Visions of Stewart Hall 1885-1963

CHRONOLOGY

1855

Pointe-Claire opens its railway station.

1885

Thomas and Alice Amelia (Armstrong) Crane acquired a parcel of land in Pointe-Claire. Gradually they bought other lots. 

1890 

Upper-class families begin to look for summer homes for fresh air and rest in the country. Charlesvoix and suburban Montreal, along the St. Lawrence becomes a popular choice.

Construction of the villa finished called the Knoll. It was a building made of wood, with turrets, a colonial roof, and a black and white upper story (half-timbered look). There was a windmill that used gravity to provide the villa with water. 

1891

The Cranes owned from Lake St. Louis to the railway, St. Jean to Sunnyview Avenue. They were travelling between Montreal and Toronto for business. They lived in major hotels like the Windsor hotel.

1898

Farm operations were productive enough to require a distribution network for milk and eggs. There were cows, chickens, and pigs. 

1900

Bourgeoisie were increasing in number by the end of the nineteenth century. Most were men from “liberal professions”, but increasingly members of the merchant class. Modern transportations were predominantly trains and steamships. Two-thirds of Canadian fortunes belonged to Montreal’s English community, and the majority of them were of Scottish origin. Most wealthy families lived in homes in the Golden Square Mile or Saint- Antoine neighbour hood (at the foot of the mountain).

1901 

Hugh Andrew Allan buys the Knoll. (Crane keeps part of the land for the Canadian Nursery).

He was the president of the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company (the official carrier of Royal Mail across the Atlantic, and whose oceanliners were the first to be equipped with turbines in 1904), and director of several other corporations (Halifax and East Railway, Grand Trunk Railway, Shipping Federation of Canada)

He was the husband of Margaret Elizabeth. Guests of the Allans would spend the day playing cricket, tennis or enjoying water sports. In the evening, lavish meals, dancing, card game, and business discussions were common. There was even a telephone line installed as soon as it was possible.

Their Montreal residence was on Stanley Street in the Golden Square Mile.

1911

Charles MacLean buys the Knoll and begins constructing a farm. He is the first to live in Pointe-Claire full time.  The farmhouse was ultramodern, made of stone, with heated marble floors, and they played classical music for the cows to get their the best quality of milk. 

This is one year after his first wife, Martha Fulford and their newborn, died. 

Charles was raised in Lachine, and joined the Canadian Army in 1904, and served overseas from 1914-1918 with the Scottish Light Dragoons.

1915-6

The Knoll is demolished to make way for living year round in Pointe-Claire.

Mull Hall is built, inspired by Fulford Place in Brockville, and named after the memory of Clan MacLean’s ancestral home on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. Locally, it was called Château MacLean.

Robert Findlay was the architect of the neoclassical architecture building, with a symmetrical facade, except for the main entrance portico adorned with columns, and a formal colonnaded veranda out back overlooking the water. The walls are made of locally quarried limestone blocks, and the roof was originally covered with cedar shingles. The facade was symmetrical, except for the main entrance portico adorned with columns. The colonnaded veranda was formal in taste.

1917

Charles marries Doris, his second wife, in London.

1919

They returned from Europe to settle at Mull Hull with their first child Ian.

They live as “gentlemen farmers”, for pleasure, with about 25 employees doing the work. 

1920

Morna MacLean was born at a rented suite at the Ritz Carlton.

1931

Muriel MacLean was born.

The children ate most meals in their nursery, on the second floor, with a dumbwaiter bringing up food from the kitchen. When Nannie had the day off, they enjoyed the solarium (located on the west side with a wrought iron frame) or winter garden, with parrots, dogs, and mischief in the fountain!

1940

The Religious of Holy Cross arrived in Montreal in 1847, and are still active internationally today. In Quebec, they founded College de Saint-Laurent, Montreal’s College Notre-Dame, Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal, and Les Compagnons de Saint-Laurent (theatre). Saint Brother Andre (born Alfred Bessette, and initiated the construction of Saint-Joseph’s oratory) is their congregation’s most famous member.

The priests buy Mull Hall, and turn it into a noviciate, and operate the farm. They moved from Sainte-Genevieve, and called it Saint Joseph Novitiate. 

The attic was used as a dormitory. 

The chapel was in the room next to the solarium (grand salon) with the altar facing north where the stage sits now.

The basement housed a workshop to make candles for the Oratory. 

They made no major changes except adding a statue of St. Joseph in front of the portico. 

They kept in use the volleyball and tennis courts. 

The initial price was “derisory”, and the farm fed the community with surplus eggs and milk sent to the Saint-Croix priests’ college (now Cegep St Laurent), but it became a financial burden as the student numbers dwindled.

The priests lived reclusively during the 17 years there.

1950s 

Montreal suburbs experience a boom, and farmland starts to be subdivided and sold to developers.

1957

Development Corporation buys the property, with plans to tear down the mansion and build high-rises (in 1959)

1958

The farm is destroyed in a fire, and the abandoned Mull Hall suffers serious damage during the winter.

1959

Walter Montcrieff and “May” Beatrice Stewart (born in Jamaica, trained as nurse in Edinburgh) lived as neighbours to the MacLeans for nearly a decade just east of Mull House (now Stewart Avenue). They buy the property before the demolition occurred. 

Walter was heir to the Macdonald Tobacco fortune (shared with his brother Thomas Howard, their father Sir William Macdonald). He was the sole head of the business from the 1920s to 1968.

 He met May at the Royal Victoria Hosptial, and were philanthropists, donating to  Macedonian College, McGill University and the RVH. May wanted to save the MacLean house. They bought it anonymously before it could be demolished.

On September 12, the Stewarts sell it to the City of Pointe-Claire for $1, with the understanding that it would be developed as a park, and maintained in perpetuity.

The city opened dialogue with the citizens of Pointe-Claire to decide the future use of this newly acquired building. Vi Duncanson headed the committee that proposed to use it as a cultural Center, which the city accepts. The goals were to make culture more democratic and to provide access to high quality courses and content. 

1962 

Stewart Hall Cultural Center opens, with Vi(olet) Duncanson as the administrative director. She involved Jean-Paul Morissette (director of National Art Gallery), Evan Turner (director of Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), and Winthrop Judkins (McGill University professor and art historian) in the designing of the first policies. She hired Helen Judkins and Ruth Auersperg to develop the culture programs and art gallery.

It was inaugurated in 1963 by Governor General George Vanier.

It was remodelled with a new roof, HVAC, and to house the new functions. The third floor became the Art Gallery, the second a library, and the ground floor and basement housed various associations. Because of the Cold War, the Pointe-Claire Rifle Club was among the first, with a shooting gallery set up in the basement! Other groups included Claycrafters Pottery Studio, Lakeshore Weavers Guild, Lakeshore Camera Club, and The Stewart Hall Seniors.

1967

Art Rental and Sales Service starts and continues to present day.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archives of the Lake St. Louis Historical Society 

City of Pointe-Claire Archives

Stewart Hall Archives

Album universal, Vol.22, no.1113, pp.560-561, Sept. 2, 1905 Bibliotheque Nationale du Quebec

SALT AND IRON AND THE MILITARY MIGHT OF CHINESE HISTORY

 China has many inventions to be proud of. They include paper (Marco Polo took it to Italy), printing, gunpowder, and the compass. They used their beginning of 4000 years of written word to record their history of inventions!

The Chinese creator is Pangu, who made humans from the parasites on his body. He died but he was followed by wise rulers. Fuji domesticated animals, and invented marriage. Shennong invented medicine, agriculture, trade, the plow and hoe. Huangdi (Yellow Emperor) invented writing, bow and arrow (weaponry), the cart (transportation), and ceramics. Legend says presided over the the first war over salt. Yao passed over his unqualified son to name Shun, a modest sage, his successor. 

Salt was harvested in crystal form each summer when a Shanxi lake called Yuncheng dried up around 6000 BC. It took until 800 BC for salt production to be recorded. They boiled ocean water in  clay pots to reduce it to salt crystals. 1000 years after the Chinese account was written, the Roman Empire spread the same technique through souther Europe. 

Iron first came into use in China around 1000 BC,  so Confucius taught morality after it’s invention, but before salt was being boiled in iron pans.  The western Qin (“chin”) state had a new philosophy develop, called legalism. They attempted to oust aristocracy, and attempted to create a meritocracy system that rewarded achievement. Unfortunately, by 221 AD, Qin took the Qi policy of price-fixing, which exploited the desperate and asked of them the highest prices for salt. A monopoly on salt and iron, justified for economic stability for the state, raised the prices even further. It would also be taxed for revenue over the centuries.

The conquering Qin state was the first dynasty to be ruled by an Emperor, which would continue until 1911. The revenues from salt would fund armies and the Great Wall, in defence against the Huns. Although the monopolies would be debated the Han dynasty with discussions of the “responsibilities of good government” (“duties of grove ent ent, state profit versus private initiative, the logic and limit of military spending, the rights and limits of goverment to interfere in the economy”), recorded in the Discourse on Salt and Iron, they would remain in place until the first century AD.

During the Tang Dynasty, the salt monopoly returned, after a six century hiatus. Aristocrats would show off their salt wealth by serving pure salt at the dinner table, in a lavish, ornate saltcellar. Now we can buy it at the dollar store, and find it so cheap that I cannot imagine there is a household without a box of it in their cupboard or a shaker near their table.

There are two great rivers in Chinese history, both running from the Tibetan plateau to drain to the East coast. There is the Yangtze, which is the wider and more navigable, and the Yellow river, which is knows as “the father of all floods” and named for the silt that colours it yellow.

The golden age of ancient China was ruled by wise Emperor Yao, and it was believed he tamed nature and introduced the much appreciated concept of flood control. This became part of his mythology. By 250 BC (Punic Wars raged in the Mediterranean between Carthage and Rome over Sicily), that mythology was becoming reality. Water management skills were critical in the development of China, and hydraulic engineering skills and political leadership went hand in hand. At this time,  Li Bing was the governor of Shu, Sichuan, and he built China’s first dam called Dujiangyan that still functions in a modernized form, off a tributary of Yangtze. He placed 3 stone figures in the water as gauges. If their feet were visible, the dam’s gate’s were opened to let in water. If their shoulders were submerged, the dam’s gates were closed. It is because of this system that eastern Sichuan became an affluent agricultural center of China. It was recorded as “Land of Abundance”. Two later versions of the stone figures, carved in 168 AD were discovered, and is ascribed to be the figure of Li Bing.He is considered one of the greatest geniuses of hydraulic engineering of all time. He also discovered that natural brine did not originate where it was found, and drilled the first brine wells.

At first, the brine wells were wide, and as the drilling skills improved, the shafts got narrower. Sometimes those drilling wells were poisoned, and explosions occurred. By 100 AD, the concern for evil spirits was replaced with the utility of the invisible substance, and this was the first use of natural gas in the world. They learned to insulate bamboo tubes and pipe the gas to boiling houses, where brine was cooked into salt crystals. By 200 AD, iron pots helped the process further.  Complex webs of bamboo piping resembling rollarcoasters transported the brine throughout the Sichuan countryside. By the 11th century percussion drilling advanced things further.

Salt, for a long time, was so precious that it was stretched by using it in condiments instead. From the Mediterranean to SE Asia, fish fermented in salt was a popular condiment. In China, soybeans were added, and eventually fish was dropped. Soy sauce came first from China, but was brought to Japan by Buddhist missionaries in 6th century. By the tenth century, Japan had industrialized soya sauce and sold it around the world. 

Other notable inventions from the Chinese: fish farming, arrows, and gun powder (from saltpeter).

Mao, during his 1950s literacy campaign, simplified the language to 40,000 characters, and although the words are completely different (jiangyou and shoyu), the character was the same in Japanese and Chinese.

Fermenting soy beans was done by “lactic acid fermentation” or pickling. Fortunately, this happens at room temperature (64-71degrees). Full immersion of the vegetables prevents oxygen (by sealing or weighting down the vegetables) and around 1% of the vegetables weight in salt keeps them from rotting. 

1000 year old eggs take 100 days to make, and keep another 100 days (but better earlier on!)

EVERYDAY IS TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION DAY

It's been an appallingly slow process to improve the heavily biased and often ignorant history taught in school to even begin to tell a more complete story. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was published in 1996, but the apologies and settlements will be ongoing for generations to come. 

This year will remembered as a traumatic one for many reasons, but I don't think we will soon forget the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops residential school at the end of the school year has ballooned to a total that has yet to be confirmed but is being quoted as high as 6509. 

Here is a map of how extensive the system was. These horrific findings are not a surprise, but the rising counts of bodies between covid waves has coaxed along with a national conversation, marking September 30th as the first national marking of the long work that is Truth and Reconciliation.

My daughter participated in her school's organization of the day, wearing an orange shirt in honour of Phyllis Webstad. Like my daughter, her proud memory of being dressed up by her family for the exciting first day of school. Unlike my daughter, she arrived and was stripped of all of her clothes, including that beloved orange shirt, and it was never returned to her. Now we wear orange to recognize the harm done to Phyllis and countless others by the residential school system, and affirm our commitment to reconcile, apologized, and learn from the admission of the truth of systemic racism, and our need to turn this trauma to growth.

It is an embarassment and an affront that Premier Legault denies that systemic racism exists, and that . The coroner's report of Joyce Echaquan's death underlines the need for acknowledgement of systemic racism. 

Here is a link to a document called Myths and Realities of Indigenous People from the Quebec commission of human and child rights.

Coming from the University of Manitoba, that has been proactive in indigenous education of all students, there is a National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation 

ANNE SULLIVAN: THE MIRACLE WORKER

This afternoon I took Princess Pirate to the her first play outside of kid's theatre and her affiliated high school. I was a little nervous when I saw the crowd, because I saw no other children in the lobby, but the character of Helen Keller was to be played by an 11 year old girl, so I thought it was the right story for her to hear. Lakeshore Players opened the season with The Miracle Worker.

The play, and movie, were familiar to me, although I am not entirely sure why. I don't have specific memories of seeing the play, or a movie, of which there are several, made for television and the big screen. I probably read a book after a movie came out, with the few memories I have are photos of Anne Sullivan in those round dark glasses, and it wasn't from real footage, but of an actress from a black and white version of the film. There are several movies made, but this is the one I recognized. Of note, there is a colour version by Disney that might be worth tracking down, and a couple of sequels to look for: Monday After The Miracle and Helen Keller: Miracle Continues.

We dressed up, and Brianne came with us. As requested, we all wore pearls! We were happily surprised to find out that row E was the second row in the theatre, and there was no one in front of PP, so her view was excellent. The play starts in Alabama, a fact I had totally forgotten. To me, her connection to Alexander Graham Bell put her in New England in my memory, where the Boston school of Deaf/Mute had invited AGB to instruct the "Visible Speech Language" that he had mastered, inspired by his phonetian father and deaf mother (during his childhood).

The theme of water was well done from beginning to end of the epiphany that broke down the barriers to Helen Keller's isolated world. At the time of the play, Helen Keller was the age of 6 and Anne Sullivan 20. From the age of 19 months, following a febrile illness, Helen Keller was deaf and blind. But as an infant she had learned the beginnings of speech, and her first word was recalled as "wa-wa", and the moment she finally connected the letters being signed into her hand was after actually pumping water she had spilt at the table on her return to her family, after being taken away for a short two weeks to gain her teacher's trust and reestablish discipline that her family was not able to give her out of their pity. This is the primordial story that I loved and carried with me.

But this time, from the title to the closing scene, I realized that this story was not about Helen Keller. It was about her teacher, and what a formidable educator she was! Blind herself, but restored surgically, she wore tinted glasses to relieve her from the glare of natural light. She had outlived her younger brother, who died in the Almhouse they were in after their mother's death. Because of another blind resident, she learned of the Perkins School for the Blind, and made an opportunity to introduce herself and was accepted as a pupil there. She entered illiterate, and left a teacher, with the rare skill of being already apt at commicating with another student there who was deaf blind: Laura Bridgman.

The spirit of Anne and her honesty about what she knows and does not was remarkable, and the essence of the play, written by William Gibson, a man who often wrote about woman triumphing, according to the playbill. I really enjoyed the brief glimpse into her life at this story telling. Now, having heard the story of Helen Keller, I want to get to known Anne Sullivan.

We laughed and we cried, and when the play came to a rapid close, we were left with a lot to talk about and a poster of the alphabet and a few memories of my grandma's roommate and her ability to teach American Sign Language (ASL) and a brief course at the library when I was a kid. PP took to it very quickly, and I just as quickly realized that I could spell, but had never learned to "read" sign language. So we spent a few minutes after the show circling the poster of the alphabet in ASL, and then an hour and a half in the grocery store getting 5 items, as PP acted mute, and patiently signed words to me over and over until I understood her.

So for the teachers reading this blog, and for the burgeoning teacher asleep in her bed, take inspiration from the story of Helen Keller, but remember that for her miracle to happen, she needed to meet Anne Sullivan! She was her companion for 50 years. Their friendship outlived Anne's married, and was the inspiration of many. Think of sign language as a language, and learn some! Read more of their stories. They are a great testament to Jung's idea: "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemicals: they are both transformed!"

Who is your Helen? Who is your Anne? Today, be a student and a teacher. Who knows what might happen? As Helen is quoted as saying, "Life is a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature." And, "One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." But also remember, as Anne is quoted, " Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction."

MESOPOTAMIAN LANGUAGES

URDU-HINDU-PERSIAN ORIGINS

IMMIGRATION AND THE PASSES

My daughter's school curriculum enlightened me to why I was a fourth generation immigrant to the Canadian prairies, but it did not do a good job explaining how the west was populated when it was already indigenously populated.

Today I watched a documentary that explains this "shared history". It explains "The Pass system", starting in 1885, concomitant with the immigration of farmers encouraged by "free landplots". For 60 years, the system was created that still echoes today. In order to leave the reservation, an aboriginal needed to ask an Indian Agent for a pass. To visit town, to go the hospital, to visit their children, who were taken as wards of the state to residential schools. They weren't always approved, were often hard to obtain, brief, and punishable by jail if not obtained.

Why is it so hard for history to be told by more than one side? As Napolean said, "History is a set of lies agreed upon". Surely it's time to tell a story with at least two sides?

MESOPOTAMIA

It took me way to long to learn about Crimea's location on the planet, and its importance in history, but Mesopotamia continues to mystify my geographically challenged brain.

It comes up from time to time. An Agatha Christie exhibit at an archeology museum. An incredible adventure book by an incredible traveller. Middle East conflicts. Museum artifacts. Old Testament stories. The stuff of the Grand Tour and the Orient Express and those who still chase these routes.



Is it strange that the news is not the first item I list? No, I live in art, and history orients me from time to time.

The trouble with remembering where Mesopotamia lies is that it baffles the geopolitical definitions of today's world. It actually is simply the land between two rivers; the Tigris and the Euphrates. It  includes Iraq, Kuwait, northern Saudi Arabia, eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and Iran-Iraq border. It runs from the Armenian Highlands to the Persian Gulf.

Familiar names of cities are Ninevah (remember Jonah and the Whale?), Baghdad, Babylon, Ur and Basra.

The people dominating may not sound familiar; the Sumerians and the Akkadians. But the Akkadians include more familiar Assyrians and Babylonians, and domination was over 2 millennia until the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. They were followed by the First Persian Empire, then the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, then Greece, then Parthian (ancient Iran/Iraq), then Roman, until the Byzantines.