It’s addicting to press onward, despite knowing that the end of the trail is never very far away, and that it ends in violence, mass graves, and, a little further back, if you’re lucky, a lack of last names. The new book, I think it’s called The Bloodlands is controversial because some people say there’s noContinue reading “The Old Country”
Category Archives: history
today’s adventure: meeting the last surviving american vet of wwi.
“ask me another question.” “what do you…think is wrong with people today?” “only that they move too fast.” “your generation was much braver.” “oh, i don’t know about that.” “what about the first world war?” “…i was 16 when i enlisted. when you’re 16 what looks like bravery is maybe just…ignorance.” The phrase ‘gaining perspective’Continue reading “today’s adventure: meeting the last surviving american vet of wwi.”
China
Note: I don’t know anything about Communism, Socialism, China, or Russia. Seriously. Certainly I fell in love at once with the poetry of Li Po and of Tu Fu, but aside from that very little has struck me in Chinese history as memorable, just the endless succession of names and dynasties, it struck me quiteContinue reading “China”
Peisistratus of Athens (rules 546-27 BCE)
(from list of weekly goals) 3. Film. I’ve spent all my time for watching films instead reading Greek history. My parents are fed up with the book, because I leave it in the kitchen, and my father began reading it and said it was intensely boring, he said he read one page three times andContinue reading “Peisistratus of Athens (rules 546-27 BCE)”
Romanticism, sexual orientation, and rich people
Tim Blanning –BBC History “Art is no longer viewed as being representational or as recreational but as essentially expressive–that’s at the heart of the romantic revolution. It changes the purpose of culture from serving some other cause or patron to being artist-centered, that is, expressing what the artist feels inside himself or herself, and onceContinue reading “Romanticism, sexual orientation, and rich people”
An Argument for the Existence and Evolution of Anti-Semitism
The existence of anti-Semitism still remains widely questioned and debated, for it strikes some as not differing from other forms of discrimination, while others see it as something unique and particular to the Jewish people. Both sides of the argument have points of merit and perhaps through their discrepancies a clearer view of anti-Semitism canContinue reading “An Argument for the Existence and Evolution of Anti-Semitism”
arts & fetters 