Tag: history

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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

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How a group of young captains felled a globe-spanning empire

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Alex Fernandes gives an evocative account of the events leading to the fall of Portugal’s madcap democratic coup in its 50th Anniversary in The Carnal Revolution. On 25 April 1974, Lisbon, over the course of a single day, Europe’s oldest fascist regime falls.  When the Galeto snack bar in Lisbon opened in 1966 it became an institution for Lisboans, as it offered sandwiches rather than bacalhau as customers sat along the counter rather than fussy small tables. On 24, April 1974, at five minutes to eleven, a Lisbon radio station broadcasts Portugal’s Eurovision entry. By 6:20pm the next day, Europe’s … Continue reading How a group of young captains felled a globe-spanning empire

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Untouchables and search for Democracy

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Although Bollywood keeps churning out pseudohistorical melodramas depicting colonial India, many Indians understandably hate the Brits for imposing the yoke of foreign rule and their policy of divide and rule.  But there are some who looked favourably on the British Empire like the Untouchables whose story is the backdrop to The Incarcerations. Alpa Shah, professor of anthropology at LSE, beings her account with the Battle of Bhima Koregaon of 1818, when the Untouchables fought alongside the East India Company to defeat their high-caste Peshwa oppressors. To them, British victory held the possibility of social mobility. Alpa Shah pulls back the curtain … Continue reading Untouchables and search for Democracy

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Revival of old dreams: unfinished love story  with America

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Doris Kearns, one of America’s most beloved historians, a genuine public intellectual whose writings were inspected by fellow scholars but also weigh on public policy and popular culture. Her history of Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, Team of Rivals, won academic prizes, and even influenced Barack Obama, who cited it after including a former primary opponent ( Hillary Clinton) and a member of the outgoing Republican administration (Robert Gates) in his national security team.  In an Unfinished Love Story, she artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history and takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband Richard (Dick) Goodwin … Continue reading Revival of old dreams: unfinished love story  with America