Posts By :

Philip Carl Salzman

Philip Carl Salzman

Philip Carl Salzman served as professor of anthropology at McGill University from 1968 to 2018. He is the author of Culture and Conflict in the Middle East; the founding chair of the Commission on Nomadic Peoples of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences; the founding editor of Nomadic Peoples; and the author of Black Tents of Baluchistan; Pastoralism: Equality, Hierarchy, and the State; Thinking Anthropologically, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East; and Understanding Culture.

All stories by: Philip Carl Salzman

Philip Carl Salzman: The Rules of War

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/05/the_rules_of_war/ Let us imagine (in the style of political philosophers) that a small country, for illustration let’s say Paraguay, is deemed by its neighbors to be a usurper and illegitimate. Further, that on numerous occasions, Uruguay to the southeast, Bolivia…

read more

Philip Carl Salzman: Clashes in Beirut

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/05/clashes_in_beirut/ After modest initiatives in recent days by the Lebanese government to restrict the independent operations of Hezbollah, fighters of Hezbollah and Amal flooded into the streets of west Beirut, attacked and dispersed government fighters, set up road blocks, and…

read more

Philip Carl Salzman

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/members/philip_carl_salzman/ As a sociocultural anthropologist, I had the good fortune to carry out ethnographic field research for 26 months among nomadic tribes and settled cultivators in Iranian Baluchistan during the period 1967-76 (see photo, right). My findings have been reported…

read more

Philip Carl Salzman: Muhammad’s Tribe

Posted by Marni Soupcoff http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/01/10/philip-carl-salzman-muhammad-s-tribe.aspx Today’s religious map of the Middle East traces to the unification of the Arabian tribes under the banner of Islam in the 7th century, and their subsequent conquest of much of the known world. Muhammad’s…

read more

Philip Carl Salzman: Why Arabs Suffer

Posted by Marni Soupcoff http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/01/11/philip-carl-salzman-why-arabs-suffer.aspx By modern standards, contemporary Middle Eastern Arab nations are failed societies. On virtually every index of socioeconomic and political development, they compare poorly with other parts of the world. Under the auspices of the United…

read more

Philip Carl Salzman on the Desert Code: Us vs. Them

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/01/14/philip-carl-salzman-on-the-desert-code-us-vs-them.aspx Posted by Marni Soupcoff To this day, the culture of the Arab world is heavily influenced by its birth among the Bedouin nomadic tribes of Arabia, and the tribal spirit that dominated their societies. Those tribes maintained order and…

read more

Philip Carl Salzman: The Middle East’s Tribal DNA

Conflicts within the Middle East cannot be separated from its peoples’ culture. Seventh-century Arab tribal culture influenced Islam and its adherents’ attitudes toward non-Muslims. Today, the embodiment of Arab culture and tribalism within Islam impacts everything from family relations, to…

read more