Author: Michael Kaput

Michael Kaput is a freelance writer and editor based in PIttsburgh, PA. He has served as an editor at Egypt's top two English-language magazines and helped companies like Boston Consulting Group get out their message. Now, he writes for the web. You can contact him at michaelkaput@gmail.com.

In Arabic, Egypt is sometimes called Umm Al-Duniya, or the mother of the world. The Nile River, which waters the country, could give it some stiff competition for that title. Considered the world’s longest river, the Nile’s waters have fostered human civilization for thousands of years. No country knows that better than Egypt: The nation’s survival depends on the river, and has since the time of the Pharaohs. While the Nile is a reference …

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The Middle East is a region of diverse cultures, contentious politics and fractured viewpoints. You wouldn’t know it from the evening news. Two-minute clips of men firing Kalashnikovs in the air and suicide bombings in Iraq dominate the headlines. Taking those reports at face value can deter even the most intrepid of travelers from experiencing the region. But even with mass populist uprisings sweeping many Middle Eastern countries, the region still offers one of the …

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You don’t get a nickname like the City of a Thousand Minarets without having earned it. A quick look at the Cairo skyline cements the Egyptian capital’s claim to the title: Everywhere you look, the spindled towers of mosques old and new puncture the clouds.

Rarely has a city been so cozy with ancient history. Cairo’s 20-plus million souls regularly pray in mosques centuries old; the call to prayer punctuates dawn and dusk from the …

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The poet Robert Browning said that “Everyone soon or late comes by round Rome.” True to Browning’s word, the Eternal City has seen its share of visitors. Whether it was the ancient empire that made Rome a household name in the four corners of the known world or the church that adopted the city as its home, a tour of Rome’s historic structures is the best way to see how each civilization that adopted Rome …

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