One of the most memorable photographs of D-Day was taken by Chief Photographer’s Mate Robert F. Sargent and aptly titled ‘Into the Jaws of Death.’
Category: History
Airbrushing Memory
With digital services often serving as our memory, to remove content from personal drives is to airbrush our memory.
A Marvellous Idea for a Blog
I didn’t have the time to write you a short blog about historical analogies, so I wrote about something else.
Dead Certainties
The key is to avoid reading events falsely, which inevitably leads to politics shaping what we think is true.
Constantine: Divine Emperor or Christian Saint?
The pulvinar was the consecrated bed, on which the images of the gods reposed. To this bed the early Roman Emperors only repaired in the long sleep of death, conscious of the fate which had befallen their progenitor Julius. Recognition by the Senate as divus was a posthumous honour, termed consecratio, following a good reign.… Continue reading Constantine: Divine Emperor or Christian Saint?
Alexander’s Invasion of Persia
“It is one of the paradoxes of history (and of historiography) that this king… should have been handed down finally in history as an enigma.” “Indeed, there is no figure about whom more writers are more at variance.” Yet what is so surprising about the fog which surrounds the myth and man who was Alexander… Continue reading Alexander’s Invasion of Persia
Age, Evil And A Better World
Age hit me the other day. To be precise it hit my right hamstring. It was cold and I got up too quickly. These were the words of old men, who I have mocked remorselessly over the years, coming from the mouth of a babe (here I mean it in the child sense); or one… Continue reading Age, Evil And A Better World
Company Men
In Calcutta a statue was erected to Lord Bentinck, Governor-General of India. Its inscription bears citing at length as it is testament to the moral zeitgeist with which the British believed their empire to be infused: [To]William Cavendish Bentinck, who during seven years ruled India with eminent prudence, integrity, and benevolence; who, placed at the… Continue reading Company Men
Madmen Raging Against the Sacred
First, let me thank you for the wonderful comments I have received, asking how I have been and why I have not written something for what seems like a long while… It has been an unpardonably long silence since I last wrote an article for this blog, but it has been writing, I am very… Continue reading Madmen Raging Against the Sacred