From Sophie's front desk — Monday, July 27
BBC News — read the full story
The strait is narrow. One boat blocks ten behind it, and ten thousand supply chains feel the pause. The BBC reports that Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea—specifically at the Bab al-Mandeb, where a third of global maritime trade moves through—are now threatening to rewire how goods reach the world. Insurance costs climb. Carriers reroute. The blockade is already working. What matters here is not just the immediate disruption but that a single chokepoint, squeezed hard enough, can reset the terms of global commerce without a formal declaration of anything. Hypatia of Alexandria takes this first, then Benjamin Franklin.
The strait you name — Bab al-Mandeb — we knew as the Gate of Tears. Grain ships from Egypt passed through those narrows on their way to Constantinople. When the Aksumites held the far shore, or when the Himyarites closed the gate, the capital starved. Constantinople learned what Alexandria had always known: grain moves only when the water is safe, and the water is safe only when the power that holds the shore is stronger than the power that raids it. In my Alexandria, the grain fleet sailed for Constantinople under imperial escort. When the Goths cut the Danube supply, when the Vandals took Carthage, when the Persians took Egypt — the capital starved.
The emperor had laws. The prefect had edicts. The patriarch had prayers. The grain did not move until the ships moved. Your Houthi missiles are not new. The weapon changes.
The strait does not. The insurance markets you mention — they are the modern equivalent of the annona insurance the prefects tried to write. It did not work then either. The premium became the cargo. What you call "global economic risk" we called annona failure. The difference is only that your grain moves in containers and feeds machines as well as bellies.
The strait does not care. The strait has always been the place where empire discovers whether it still holds the shore.
reason for the struggle—the desire of some to reduce the amount of production and divide it among the producers—was solved as the Texas Legislature gave the Railroad Commission authority to ration production. A number of major fields were discovered in the 1930’s, mostly in West …
taken from him, the cause is the man who takes it. Many are the contributory causes of a shipwreck. Glory may be acquired justly or unjustly. Just glory is due to services rendered, or to the esteem of other people. Unjust glory is caused by the injustice of those who glorify tha…
for the benefit of these funds. As a result, the history of oil exploration and development within Texas is directly related to the story of Texas land. For that reason, it is briefly told here. Tradition says that one John A. Veatch arrived in what is now East Texas but which wa…
the location, the wagon on which it was carried broke down and was extensively damaged. It was decided to drill at the site of the breakdown. On May 28, 1923, oil was discovered there. The well was named Santa Rita and was the discovery well for the Big Lake field in Reagan Count…
needs its co-operation; then it resembles a badly attuned lyre, which is incapable of producing sounds which could form a perfect harmony.[247] ANY OCCURRENCE MAY BE DUE TO MANY DIFFERENT CAUSES. 14. Poverty, wealth, glory, and authoritative positions may have many different caus…
The coffeehouse crowd reads the same sheet I do — the strait at the mouth of the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb they call it, where the Houthi cannon now make free with Saudi hulls. You know the feeling: your venture rides a bottom that must pass that gate, and the underwriters at Lloyd's have already doubled the premium. We have seen this before. In '78, the Bordeaux merchants wrote to us that their cutters dared not sail without convoy, and the Jamaica fleet huddled together like sheep before the wolf.
The insurance on a tobacco hogshead from Virginia to Nantes tripled in a season. Paper money in the States ran to seven hundred million livres, and every interrupted voyage pushed the price higher still. A maxim: he who commands the narrow passage commands the price of every commodity that passes through it. The French understood this when they sent La Motte-Piquet to intercept the English trade; the British understood it when they blockaded our ports.
The Houthi understands it now. The difference is that no great power stands ready to clear the lane with a squadron of the line. The carriers divert around the Cape — weeks added, fuel burned, crews exhausted — and the cost settles on the merchant who passes it to the shopkeeper who passes it to you. I once proposed an entrepôt at Marseilles to steady the tobacco market; the Empress Queen forbade it.
Trade finds its way, but not without friction. The empty sack cannot stand upright.
abhorred by all civilized nations. Heretofore, exasperated as our people have been, they have been exhorted to forbearance and acts of humanity. But now, faced with published threats, Congress has resolved to retaliate. We ask whether His Majesty might issue a declaration to the …
<Bordeaux, November 28, 1778: We are without interesting intelligence. Because of their heavy losses the merchants here must reduce their exports, to the detriment of the United States. Only three small cutters belonging to Virginia have sailed in the past three months. A 24-gun …
<Bordeaux, January 9, 1779: Yesterday the convoy for the French islands sailed, accompanied by three small cutters for the United States. From a vessel arriving out of Edenton I have learned that tobacco is £10 per hundred weight in American currency. American prices are extraord…
the United States of North America shall protect & defend the vessels and effects belonging to the subjects of his Swedish Majesty, which shall be in the ports, havens, or roads or on the seas near to the countries, islands cities and towns of the said states and shall use their …
end of the war trade could expand to include cod, steel, planking, and other raw materials from America, and lace from Flanders. To ensure some measure of control over the price of its tobacco, the United States should establish an entrepôt at Marseilles, a free port, and another…
The story ran in BBC News. Shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb has always moved grain and goods; now it moves fear of disruption itself—a different cargo through the same strait. That's Old News for today.