20 Best Books and 19 Notable Mentions I’ve Read in 2019
You know the gig by the now: not the new books that came out last year but the books I got to read throughout 2019. There have been far too …
Read MoreTag: history
That time Poland was wearing a short skirt
The year wouldn’t go past without Vladimir Putin managing to again eschew any role in starting the Second World War and instead blaming Poland for getting invaded: Speaking at a …
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The Man in the High Kolkhoz
If you have Netflix (no chill necessary), there is a Polish series available, in fact the first Polish Netflix production ever, called “1983”. Yes, there is an element of play …
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Where were you when the walls came crashing down
It was a Thursday. I couldn’t remember but just checked it, thanks to the magic of the Internet – something that certainly did not exist in its current omnipresent form …
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Which witch is which?
An interesting Halloween-inspired graphic from “The Economist”* that sheds a lot of light on the history of European witch hunts: The key take-aways in my book: 1) Contrary to the …
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The Decline and Fall of Robert Fisk
If you have been wondering whatever happened to Robert Fisk (I know you haven’t; this is just a rhetorical set-up), he is still alive and writing. His most recent effort …
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Denying the sky is blue because Orange Man Bad
Blind hatred makes people irrational. When you suffer from the Trump Derangement Syndrome, you are likely to take the opposite view to the President on pretty much every issue, because …
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China – not quite 70 for 70
People’s Republic of China is today celebrating 70 years of existence. On this day in 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the new state at the Tiananmen Square in …
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Before there was Trump, there was Joe McCarthy
I’ve been reading M Stanton Evans’s excellent and scholarly “Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies” (published some 12 years ago) …
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The Fourth Partition
It’s 2019, so over the next few years we will commemorate a number of 80th anniversaries connected with the Second World War. British people will be reminded of their darkest …
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Unapologetic
How long must societies face penance for past sins? Individuals have it easy – there are either statutes of limitation or you die; either way, it’s over. Human societies, on …
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The two “what if”s of September 1939
Eighty years ago, Germany invaded Poland from the west, the north and the south, starting World War Two. Seventeen days later. the Soviet Union invaded from the east, completing the …
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Russia tries to normalise Ribbentrop-Molotov
The other day the world (mostly Eastern Europe and a few history buffs) remembered to 80th anniversary of the signing in Moscow of the infamous Ribbentrop-Molotov non-aggression pact between the …
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One such day
Seventy-five years ago, late afternoon on 1 August 1944, the biggest single act of resistance in the Nazi occupied Europe commenced in Warsaw. The Uprising was to last two month, …
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Happy 400 years of Solidarity, America!
Aurelia Pucinski, a justice of the Illinois Appellate Court, remembers a little know incident of the early American history, whose anniversary we are celebrating today: Original records of the Jamestown …
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Who’s afraid of the big bad tank?
Donald Trump has brought tanks into Washington DC for the 4th of July celebrations and people are going nuts. None nuttier than a Harvard academic and a former Clinton man, …
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As one of those Ellis Island families, dear Alexandria…
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AKA Occasional Cortex, She Guevara, Chiquita Khrushchev) really does embody all the worst characteristics of the Millennials without any of the generation’s redeeming qualities, as if in some …
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What Trotsky’s granddaughter said
In one of those cruel strokes of fate, all of Leon Trotsky’s four children predeceased him, even if many would not feel any compassion for one of the fathers of …
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Chernobyl versus nuclear power
I don’t know whether it was the intention of the creators of HBO’s “Chernobyl” mini-series to scare the viewers’ pants off about the nuclear technology (I do know it was …
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No, not every wall is the Berlin Wall
You have to give this to libertarians: they are at least consistent. For example, unlike most if not all other ideological persuasions, they believe in a free and unrestricted movement …
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