Wednesday Links 2.5.07

View from the Daphne Hotel-Istanbul, via Argenberg's photostream

In Washington, Michael Dirda writes about Vermeer's Hat, which describes how at the dawn of globalization, "the lure of China's wealth haunted the seventeenth-century world."

In London, Tom Barnett explains the continental aspirations of U.S. Africa Command.

In New Haven, Chris Blattman lists an excellent African reading list.

In Cambridge, eon: dean of cyberspace gives us something to ponder.