The personnel of the American Legation must have been as excited as the rest of Tangier on April 5, 1928. The swimmer herself would have been out of sight, a tiny figure among the waves and treacherous currents of the Strait of Gibraltar, though her flotilla of witnesses, onlookers, and supporters may have been visible. … Read more First Across the Strait: Mercedes Gleitze 1928
CSTM Director Omar Hassein briefing National War College group NESA = Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, part of National Defense University (NDU) NWC = National War College, also part of NDU Last week saw two separate groups representing different aspects of professional military education (PME) converge on TALIM. The historic American … Read more SOG, NESA, NWC: PME Comes to TALIM
Jesse McMath, US Consul Tangier, 1862-1869 Those shoe boxes full of old photos keep on producing historic gems. Thanks to Parisian pediatrician, author, and Tangerine transplant Philip Abensur – who had already provided us a rare image of Civil War era US Consul in Tangier James DeLong from the archives of his great great-uncle, … Read more Consul McMath’s Sentence to Tangier
The village of GaucÃn Ronda A week spent on the Andalusian coast, looking south, meant that Morocco was never out of sight. So too it seemed further inland, where the whitewashed hilltop villages look much like they must have looked before the Moors were expelled from Spain half a millenium ago. Based in … Read more The Andalusian-Maghrebi Cultural Bridge
Tangier, the Strait, Spain & Gibraltar This week saw the grand opening of Renault's massive Tangier factory, inaugurated by King Mohammed VI of Morocco. His Majesty went on to cut ribbons on other Tangier infrastructure projects, including the new Tanger-Med petroleum port. Tangier, Boom Town. Photo courtesy Renault. As Time Magazine's "Global … Read more Scenic View of Europe’s Market: Renault in Tangier
From "Précipitations Annuelles," dry month map inset at TALIM research library, from the colonial era Institut Scientifique Chérifien The Scientific American picked up Reuters' article from today "Morocco prays for rain for first time since 2007." Now, I don't think that my prayers for dry weather last fall, when the Embassy contractor started our latest … Read more Let It Rain, On Morocco
… they saw Africa. Notes from a trip across the Strait. Well, of course they saw Africa: every primary school geography student knows that the Strait of Gibraltar (or, as they say north of the water, el Estrecho de Gibraltar) separates the continents of Europe and Africa. But Spain's Africanistas were not academic "Africanists" – … Read more What the Africanistas Saw Across El Estrecho de Gibraltar
A shopping expedition to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta does not provide the material for sophisticated socio-political analysis, so this little report will be mostly impressionistic. Maybe it's because we live inside the walled medina of Tangier, but we found Ceuta's 7 square miles surprisingly expansive. Partly that's because of the fantastic coastal road that … Read more Ceuta: Spain’s Toehold On the Strait of Gibraltar
Mittelmeerland will investigate the future of the Mediterranean and research six different cities over three years. In the second workshop we will study the dynamic territory of Tangier and the mutual dependencies of land and water. The Archictectural Association (AA) School of Architecture, London Yesterday's final session of the 10-day Mittelmeerland workshop in Tangier featured … Read more Mapping Mittelmeerland – An Architectural Mediterranean
Recently I had to explain how it was that, despite Morocco's generally sunny, beneficent climate, we had to worry about such things as heavy rains, humidity, and mold here in Tangier. Location, location, location – we're on the Strait of Gibraltar, and there's a lot of water in several directions. So it's no surprise that … Read more Restoration, Renovation, Preservation: Keeping the Legation Whole
