Archive for the ‘History’ Category
What was the population of America before it was ‘discovered’ by Europeans?
May 9th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I am currently reading “A Little History Of The United States” by James West Davidson. At my age, I prefer to read short books so that there is a reasonable chance that I’ll finish them. Davidson explains that, when in 1492, Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ America, around 8 million Indians lived in North America. At the […]
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The night that the United States bombed a Chinese embassy
May 7th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Twenty years ago today, on 7 May 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia (Operation Allied Force), five US Joint Direct Attack Munition guided bombs hit the People’s Republic of China embassy in the Belgrade district of New Belgrade, killing three Chinese reporters and outraging the Chinese public. According to the U.S. government, the intention had been to bomb the nearby Yugoslav Federal Directorate for […]
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The making of American power (4): military dictatorships in Latin America
March 16th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This week, I attended week 4 of an eight-week evening class at London”s City Literary Institute. The title is “The making of American power: US foreign policy from the Cold War to Trump” and our lecturer is Jack Gain. Week 4 of the course was about the many interventions that the US has made in Central and […]
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The making of American power (3): the war in Vietnam
March 14th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Last week, I attended week 3 of an eight-week evening class at London”s City Literary Institute. The title is “The making of American power: US foreign policy from the Cold War to Trump” and our lecturer is Jack Gain. Week 3 of the course was on the war in Vietnam. I was reminded of my […]
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A review of “A Short History Of Europe” by Simon Jenkins
March 10th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
“My young granddaughter did not think that this book looked ‘short’ but, at around 300 pages to tell the story of some two and half millennia, this can truly be termed a concise history and Jenkins has done a splendid job in making it very accessible and immensely readable. The alliterative subtitle of the work […]
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Ever heard of the Thucydides gap?
March 5th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
In foreign policy discussions, this is a deadly trap first identified by the ancient Greek historian Thucydides. As he explained, “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” The past 500 years have seen 16 cases in which a rising power threatened to displace a […]
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The shameful history of Vichy France
March 4th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This weekend, together with 36 others, I attended a one-day course on Vichy France delivered by Sebastien Ardouin at London’s City Literary Institute. It was an immensely informative course backed up with a handout of 24 pages. Vichy France was the so-called Free Zone of the country which operated from 1940 to 1944 under the […]
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The making of American power (2): the Cold War
March 1st, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This week, I attended week 2 of an eight-week evening class at London”s City Literary Institute. The title is “The making of American power: US foreign policy from the Cold War to Trump” and our lecturer is Jack Gain. Week 2 of the course addressed Cold War power politics with the Soviet Union. We talked […]
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Word of the day: gobbet
February 26th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
A gobbet — from the Middle English word for a chunk of meat — is an extract from a primary source put forward for analysis. I’m doing a history course at the City Literary Institute in central London and our lecturer assigns us a gobbet each week to consider. It is literally a ‘chunk’ of […]
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The making of American power (1): the end of the Second World War
February 23rd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This week, I started a new eight-week evening class at London”s City Literary Institute. The title is “The making of American power: US foreign policy from the Cold War to Trump” and our lecturer is Jack Gain. Week 1 of the course discussed the nature of state power and the post-war reconstruction of Europe. State […]
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