Tag: history

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Toxic masculinity

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For decades, the Kennedy name has been synonymous with wealth, power, and above all else – integrity. But this carefully c constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the Kennedy men’s legacy of physical and psychological abuse of women, part of a tradition of toxic masculinity that spans generations and has ruined untold lives.  Through scandal after scandal, the family and their defenders have managed to keep this shameful story out of spotlight. Long before the Lewinsky affair, JFK had multiple sexual encounters with White House interns, he even slept with one Mimi Alford, in his wife’s powder-blue bedroom. It’s no … Continue reading Toxic masculinity

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Forget Google Maps imaging mapping of Seven Seas

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Victory that was owed to the cumbersomely named Hydrographical Office, the Royal Navy Department responsible for its charts, detailed maps of seas and coasts, with tidal ranges, water depths and other essential relevant details, after the battle of Copenhagen, in 1801, confronted by a formidable fixed line of Danish ships supported from the land, Admiral Horatio Nelson had to make a bold decision . Should he risk taking his ships into the narrow, shallow channel where the enemy lay, so that Nelson’s three ships ran aground before the battle had properly begun?  Admiral Parker, the commander of the British fleet, … Continue reading Forget Google Maps imaging mapping of Seven Seas

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Campaigner for equal opportunity in the workplace, anti-slavery, human rights

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Social historian Jane Robinson’s Biography of Barbara Leigh Bodichon, a victorian feminist we should all be grateful to, is as entertaining as it is necessary, in histories of the women’s movement,  and from the walls of Girton College, Cambridge, where she looks out, somewhat glossy-eyed. Bodichon was both one of the finest Victorian England’s finest female painters, exhibiting at London’s Royal Academy and formidable campaigner for women’s rights, and her achievements stayed under the radar, as she defied easy categorisation. Her pamphlet “A Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Laws Concerning Women” was the beginning of a long effort … Continue reading Campaigner for equal opportunity in the workplace, anti-slavery, human rights

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Donald Sutherland  dead at 88

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Veteran Canadian actor Donald Sutherland known for roles in M*A*S*H, Klute, The Hunger Games, The Dirty Dozen, Kelly’s Heroes, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Animal House, and Don’t Look Now, has died aged 88 after long illness.  He had 200 film credits including recent roles in Trust, The Undoing, Sutherland’s 1970s resume included a remake of the horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers and a memorable turn as a pot-smoking professor in the National Lampoon comedy Animal House. His son, the actor Kiefer Sutherland, said: “With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed … Continue reading Donald Sutherland  dead at 88

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Wilderness to Freedom

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Tina Miles, a National Book Award-winning author of All That She Carried, acknowledges in her fascinating new book Night Flyer, Harriet Tubman is the subject of several excellent modern biographies, most notably  by Kate Clifford Larson and Catherine Clinton. Tubman’s first official “as told to” biography was published as early as 1869 and was written by Sarah Bradford, one of several white abolitionist women who supported Tubman in her work. Tina Miles explains intimately and revelatory reckoning with the myth and the truth behind an American everyone knows and few really understand. Harry Tubman, five feet tall, unable to read, … Continue reading Wilderness to Freedom

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Lost world of the Middle East Under Ottoman 

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This is an essential book for understanding the emergence of the modern Middle East from the destruction of the old Ottoman world. How the rule of law was restored to the birthplace ce of Judaism and Christianity, Damascus, after a massacre in 1860s, and the veneration in Island, the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean  Sea,  the most historically burdened place in the world. For centuries this city has drawn in powerful states aspiring to hegemony over the Holy Land, as the minorities sought refuge  from persecution and pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem and Mecca. Russian warships refuel at their … Continue reading Lost world of the Middle East Under Ottoman 

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All that Glitters is not gold

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Bre-X Minerals, a Canadian mining company claimed that it had discovered a huge deposit of gold, deep in the Indonesian jungle, which triggered a scramble to invest in the firm.  But question remains about the mysterious death of  Michael de Guzman, the company’s chief geologist, as on the morning of 19 March 1997 he boarded a helicopter flight to travel to a remote jungle site in Indonesia. This journey he has previously made many times, to a place where he had reported finding huge deposits of gold. But this time he never arrived. Twenty minutes into the journey, a rear door on … Continue reading All that Glitters is not gold

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Past pains follow present pleasures: Tangled-colonial roots

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Do you cherish British countryside, the moors and lochs, valleys and mountains, cottages and country houses. Historian and professor of colonialism and heritage at the University of Leicester, Corrine Fowler brings rural life and colonial rule together with transformative results, through ten country walks, roaming the island with varied companions. She connects the Cotswolds to Calcutta. Dolgellau to Virginia and Grasmere to Canton. Empire transformed rural lives for better and for worse, whether in Welsh sheep farms or Cornish copper mines, it offer both opportunity and exploitation. Flower shows how the booming profits of overseas colonial activities, and the select … Continue reading Past pains follow present pleasures: Tangled-colonial roots

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Seductive pursuit of beauty myth: Ladies in black knickers, corsets, cosmetics

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Are you in front of the dressing table history, a place where your dreams come true, doubts, self-harm and hopes. Who determines which shape is currently “all the rage”? How to custom, colour, class and sex fit into the picture/ Virginia Nicholson explains how advances made by feminism collided with the changing shape of desirability. The pain is Gladys’s botched surgery on her nose, Dorothy, whose skin colour lost her an Oscar, Beccy who took slimming pills and died, and the radioactive corsets. The New Women who discovered freedom by bobbing their hair, the boyish, athletic “ Health and Beauty” … Continue reading Seductive pursuit of beauty myth: Ladies in black knickers, corsets, cosmetics

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Friendship, fraud, scams, shady deals and Fine Art

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£52bn annual sales for the Art World! Art World’s estimated total annual sales of over £52billion ( $65  billion) like, Venice’s rich displays art, old, new, and compete with parties in private palazzi and billionaires’ boats. Yet art traders are struggling to convert the next generation of enthusiasts into committed buyers. Prices, ownership, and conditions that reveal the limits of a market with no overarching oversight, which still relay on handshakes, and the hidden code of conduct. In the last year art advisor Lisa Schiff whose clients include Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, stands accused of running a Ponzi scheme amid a legal claim … Continue reading Friendship, fraud, scams, shady deals and Fine Art