Dear Commons Community,

The U.S. Supreme Court said yesterday it would not block an extreme new Texas law that criminalizes abortion after six weeks, a striking defeat for abortion rights advocates who say the ban is a direct assault on Roe v. Wade.  About 85% to 90% of abortions in Texas occur after the sixth week of pregnancy.

The ruling was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the court’s three liberal members. 

The majority issued a brief decision saying that, although women’s health groups had raised “serious questions about the constitutionality” of the law, the application failed to “carry the burden” necessary for an injunction while any legal challenges work their way through the courts.

“In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’ law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts,” the justices wrote. They added that the ruling “in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law.”

The decision came just under a day after the court effectively allowed the Texas abortion ban to go into effect by not taking any action after a coalition of abortion rights groups filed an emergency appeal to halt it.

The new law, Senate Bill 8, effectively bans abortions at six weeks, when many women don’t yet realize they’re pregnant. It also deputizes private citizens who can receive bounties of up to $10,000 for suing anyone accused of “aiding and abetting” patients who seek an abortion in Texas.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor excoriated her conservative colleagues, saying the court had “silently acquiesced in a state’s enactment of a law that flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedents.”

“The court’s order is stunning,” she wrote in her dissent, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. “Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”

Roberts, in a separate dissent, said he would have blocked the law while it was before the court, calling it “not only unusual, but unprecedented.” 

“Although the Court does not address the constitutionality of this law, it can of course promptly do so when that question is properly presented,” he wrote. “At such time the question could be decided after full briefing and oral argument, with consideration of whether interim relief is appropriate should enforcement of the law be allowed below.”

The Texas law, however, is notable in that it was drafted specifically to be difficult to challenge in court. The bill bars state officials from enforcing the new law but, by deputizing private citizens, it makes it much harder to craft a legal argument against it.

Abortion rights advocates have said the new law will effectively force tens of thousands of people to travel outside the state in order to get an abortion, placing a huge financial and emotional burden on them. Women’s rights advocates have also argued the bill could easily become a blueprint for other states hoping to also deny a woman’s right to choose abortion.

A sad day for women’s rights!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading The Horde:  How the Mongols Changed the World, a new book by Marie Favereau, an associate professor of history at Paris Nanterre University.  I decided to read it because I knew very little about Mongol history and culture and was intrigued by the title.  The book met my expectations and filled a gap in my knowledge of the contributions that Chinggus Khan (Genghis Kahn) and his descendants made to Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Europe.  They were much more than just a “horde” of raiders on horseback and had an appreciation for commerce, religious freedom, and building a political organization across vast expanses of the Asian, African and European continents.  Favereau makes the case that the Mongols were a force for global development comparable to the more familiar Western and Mediterranean empires of old.  Their nomadic way of life unfortunately “left few architectural and lexical markers of their imprint on the world.”  There are no great Mongol cities and monuments

I found it an interesting read and recommend it without reservation to anyone wanting to know more about the Mongol people.

Below are excerpts from a number of reviews.

Tony

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“Outstanding, original, and revolutionary. Favereau subjects the Mongols to a much-needed reevaluation, showing how they were able not only to conquer but to control a vast empire. A remarkable book.”—Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

“The Mongols have been ill-served by history, the victims of an unfortunate mixture of prejudice and perplexity… The Horde flourished, in Favereau’s fresh, persuasive telling, precisely because it was not the one-trick homicidal rabble of legend.”—The Wall Street Journal

“In medieval European times, the Mongols ruled a vast area of the Eurasian landmass stretching as far to the west as modern Ukraine. Favereau, a French specialist on nomadic empires, achieves the exceptional feat of writing about this era in a way that is accessible to general readers as well as scholarly.”—Tony Barber, Financial Times

“Fascinating… The Mongols were a sophisticated people with an impressive talent for government and a sensitive relationship with the natural world… An impressively researched and intelligently reasoned book that will be welcomed by historians of the Mongol Empire.”—Gerard DeGroot, The Times

“A major achievement: it is thorough, accurate and complex, yet also accessible to a broad readership. Her blow-by-blow account of Mongol life and politics as one ruler falls and another rises is the most complete we have. Even better, the book is not solely focused on the Mongols. Favereau is an integrative historian committed to showing how the Horde influenced other peoples and shaped world history… Readers will enjoy the richness and clarity of The Horde.”—Timothy Brook, Literary Review

“The Horde is not the first history to challenge the depiction of the Mongol Empire as governed solely by ruthless conquerors and plunderers, but it is the most nuanced and comprehensive history.”—Francis P. Sempa, New York Journal of Books

“The first book to be devoted exclusively to the Golden Horde. It is at once a microhistory, dense with regional politics and war, and a survey of the Horde’s wider influence.”—Colin Thubron, The New York Review of Books

“In The Horde, an ambitiously revisionist account of the Mongol Empire, Favereau presents the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century conquerors of the steppe as sophisticated stewards of globalism, rulers who practiced remarkable tolerance, and stimulated far-reaching economic growth.”—Dinyar Patel, Scroll

“It is far too often forgotten that Asia’s nomadic empires, from the Sogdians and Huns through the Parthians and Seljuks, were key drivers of greater Asia’s rich cultural diversity. This extraordinary book vividly details how the nomadic Mongols operated the largest empire of the premodern world, through practices that continue to shape today’s world.”—Parag Khanna, author of The Future Is Asian

“A deeply compelling, sympathetic, and highly engaging account of how the Horde was created and of its lasting impact on the evolution of what we now call ‘globalization.’ Favereau’s book will transform our understanding of world history.”—Anthony Pagden, author of Worlds at War

“Favereau’s detailed and objective account of the Mongol conquest and rule of Russia rescues the era from dark neglect and prejudice to reveal its powerful positive and negative influences in shaping modern Eurasia. This highly readable and deeply informed work fills in one of history’s important missing chapters.”—Jack Weatherford, author of Genghis Khan and the Quest for God

“Combining material and textual sources, Favereau has written the best book on the Jochid Khanate: the first to see events resolutely from a Jochid perspective, without foreclosing on the vast contexts that bind the history of the Horde to that of Eurasia and the world.”—Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author of Pathfinders

“In this riveting book, Favereau shows how the most enduring descendants of Chinggis Khan’s Mongol imperium—the Western or ‘Golden’ Horde—fashioned an exceptionally resilient imperial system with far-reaching influence in western Eurasia. She has challenged us to think afresh about how mobility and empire can be fused into dynamic political and cultural forms.”—John Darwin, author of After Tamerlane

“Eye-opening… A meaningful corrective to popular misconceptions about Mongols’ role in world history.”—Publishers Weekly

“Rather than being the murderous mob depicted in film and popular history, the Mongol horde, this book reveals, was a complex Euro-Asian culture… [Favereau] dispels the myth that it was just a rampaging mass of warriors; it possessed great governing skills, was adept at social relationships, and remained a major force on the Eurasian landmass until it began to withdraw eastward after the Black Death.”—Kirkus Reviews

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOEvgbboK0U

Dear Commons Community,

Last week at the We Love New York Homecoming Concert and backed by the NY Philharmonic Orchestra, Jennifer Hudson gave a wonderful rendition of Nessun Dorma from Puccini’s Turandot. There were tears in the eyes of people in the audience.  This aria was a favorite among a number of major opera singers including Luciano Pavarotti. The lyrics with an English translation are below.

Enjoy!

Tony