The Past in Present

Constants and Change

April 7, 2019 / nilslukacs

Why you shouldn’t Ask Historians for Advice on the Stock Market.

Dow Jones Index 100-Year Historical Chart

Some time ago, a friend asked me, which themes and issues I — as a historian — see most significant in the near future.

We were then talking about investments and stock markets. Think long-term financial sustainability.

I then remembered a podcast by the U.S. think tank Council on Foreign Relations, where the author, a political scientist, elaborated on various issues that, due to their global character, would of major significance in the near future:

Climate change, epidemic diseases, terrorism, water, cyber security, etc.

In retrospect, I feel bad for citing this answer.

Blind Elections

March 31, 2019 / nilslukacs

As the first Democrat’s are announcing their candidacy for the 2020 presidential elections in the United States, the country as well as the rest of the world is bracing for quite a show.

Certainly, U.S. presidential elections (and politics in general for that matter) have always featured polarised characters. It seems though, at least from the other side of the Atlantic, that Donald J. Trump’s presidency has brought this to a whole new level.

It thus makes the keen observer wonder, when did the debates about a nation — and the case of the United States, debates about the fate of the world — become prime time entertainment?

Game Theory: The Rules of the Game in Academia

August 17, 2018 / nilslukacs

chess Looking back on the stages if my education that I’ve gone through so far — from kindergarten to my current PhD position — it feels like the average hours I studied/worked per day peaked somewhere around the second year of high school.

I was about 16 at the time.

Somehow that made me wonder. Isn’t it supposed to intensify as you grow older?

Why did I spend most time at a desk during my teenage years, when I probably should have been working on my social skills?

Make no mistakes, the output of my working time increased since and I still encounter intensive long hour working days over an extended time period (usually deadline related).

But it has noticeably decreased.

The 21st Century Bottleneck

August 8, 2018 / nilslukacs

GettyImages_120411197-H — Atomic Fission and Fusion: A built-in mechanism to filter intelligent life?

Where is everybody?
Enrico Fermi, 1950

Enrico Fermi famously asked this question in 1950, addressing the paradox of basically indefinite possibilities for intelligent life in our universe and yet so far zero encounters with alien life-forms.

Change VS. Make America Great Again

July 19, 2018 / nilslukacs

My 90-year-old landlord is convinced I should write my dissertation about Donald Trump, instead of Barack Obama. He says it would be “more interesting”. Fair enough.

Instead I’m “stuck” with Obama’s Middle Eastern policy. How he tried to extend his slogan of “Change” into that troubled region by promoting a “New Beginning”.

I marvel at questions like these:
Why was there a new beginning needed?
How did the ‘new’ look like in the eyes of the charismatic 44th President of the United States?
And what on earth did he refer to as ‘old’? Bush? Clinton? Cold War diplomacy? The New Deal? Slavery?

Then it struck me, sipping my tea at the window and watching my landlord bring the trash bins to the street.

Trump is essentially doing the same thing!

Hitler’s Car Accident – Why Historians Don’t Engage in Counterfactual History

January 3, 2018 / nilslukacs

479BDD1800000578-5217983-image-a-6_1514466977978 — Hitler in a car (but no accident), 1940.

“What if Adolf Hitler was killed in a car accident in 1933?”

Chances are that at one point of your school or college formation you came across a question that sounded something like this. With me it came up in a high school history class. Little was I aware of how superfluous the question was.

Of Immigrants and Refugees

February 24, 2017 / nilslukacs

01-kurdish-refugees-at-turkey-border-670 — *Ethnic curds at the Syrian-Turkish border 2015. Photo by John Stanmeyer for National Geographic.*

The history of mankind is one of constant migration. Peoples have always moved, be it for food, violence, or simple curiosity. Looking at the big picture, the recent controversies on the topic of (im-)migration seems all but marginal. Nevertheless, the debate has gained a considerable political momentum.
In Europe the current so-called “Refugee Crisis”, a direct consequence of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, dominates the public debate. In the United States, President Donald Tump managed to ride on the populist theme of immigration from Latin America. “The Wall” carried him through much of his electoral campaign.

Between security concerns and compassion, opinions are split. As the debates heat up, losing the overview on the issue is an all too human trait. The main arguments for a more liberal or conservative immigration policy will therefore be recapitulated below; three on each side, starting with the ones for a more restrictive policy. The reader is invited to weight each of them based on his/her on values and is highly encouraged to do further research. This is by no means a scientific article, rather a summary of a public debate. The reader may or may not continue with the author’s personal stance in the concluding paragraph.

Welcome!

February 22, 2017 / nilslukacs

Dear reader,

welcome to The Past in Present – A Contemporary Middle Eastern Project. The goal of this website is to promote research on the modern Middle East across the scientific fields. This is a humble beginning where I share my current and former projects on the topic and present some useful information and links for fellow researchers and curious readers.