NB: The Rev Daniel O’Connor was pastor of St Stephen’s College during the years I was there, in the 1960’s. He and his dear wife Juliet befriended me and my comrades, at a time we were considered trouble-makers. They did not agree with our politics, but for all that, never withdrew their affection. One of… Read More India and the End of Empire. Selected Writings of Daniel O’Connor
First posted May 27, 2012 Out of the mass experience of pointless death, a new way of speaking and writing, devoid of euphemism, arose, a plain style we associate with Hemingway.. The Great War chronicles the loss of the old rhetoric, of high pieties, of sacrifice and roseate dawns, in favor of “blood, terror, agony, madness, shit,… Read More Paul Fussell, ex-soldier, literary scholar & critic of war (1924-2012)
The moral distinction between liberal democracies and dictatorships is being flattened by the carnage in Gaza Suhas Chakma For most of human history human rights did not exist. The struggle to secure them arguably began in 1215 with the Magna Carta in England, which promised protection from illegal imprisonment as a right. But it took another 733… Read More Human rights are disappearing before our eyes
For those interested, here are some materials and documentaries related to the world’s worst war A New History of the Second World War Was Vichy France a Puppet Government or a Willing Nazi Collaborator? The Second World War Remember this lady. In memory of Irena Sendler Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Clara Zetkin: Fascism must be defeated (1932) Traute Lafrenz,… Read More September 3 marks the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War
First posted May 22, 2015 The historian Antony Beevor tells Keith Lowe why his next book will confront one of the last taboos of the Second World War Antony Beevor has sleepless nights. When I met him recently at his west London home, he confessed this in a matter-of-fact way, and neither of us sees… Read More Antony Beevor on the history of the second world war: ‘There are things that are too horrific to put in a book’
The photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) offer a vivid portrait of a lost world: the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I and the coming revolution. His subjects ranged from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia, to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power, to the daily life and… Read More The Russian Empire in full colour (1910)
First posted October 22, 2013 Forever war is forever profitable. Think of the Lockheed Martins of the world. In their commerce with the Pentagon, as well as the militaries of other nations, they ultimately seek cash payment for their weapons and a world in which such weaponry will be eternally needed. In the pursuit of security or… Read More William Astore: War as Disaster Capitalism
First posted September 24, 2017 By DOUGLAS KERR One of the most acute chroniclers and critics of the 19th-century European empires of the East was neither a historian nor a political scientist, but a Polish mariner. Douglas Kerr examines how Joseph Conrad mastered the narratives of empire in a language that was not his own.… Read More Joseph Conrad and the East
By Robert Alvarez Decades of nuclear weapons tests and other radioactive experiments injured or killed scientists, soldiers, and innocent bystanders. Many of them, and their relatives, have never been compensated, but new efforts may change that. A former Senate staffer and expert on the US nuclear program looks back at its harmful effects, and how the… Read More Seeking justice for radiation victims of the US nuclear program
DOCUMENTS: BOOKS: IMAGE & SOUND: Editor’s Picks: o o Books of Note: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
After the truth-shower 