Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts

Saturday, August 17, 2024

difficult to ignore

They denounced clerical vice and avarice, and repudiated most sources of clerical income and power. They denied the authority of the church fathers to interpret the scriptures and insisted on their own right to do so.

They maintained that marriage was a matter for those concerned and not a sacrament of the church. They advocated the baptism of adults, not of infants, and confession in public before the community, not in private to priests.

In short, the faith they preached plainly affirmed the values of a world in which small groups of men and women stood together as equals, dependent on each other, suspicious of outsiders and hostile to every external claim on their obedience, allegiance or wealth. They represented a challenge increasingly difficult for the reformers to ignore. --The War on Heresy, pg 100-101

it's difficult indeed.
As with many radical thinkers, Arnold’s principal achievement was to unite his enemies. -pg 113
"Augustine’s uncritical reliance on the inadequate Latin translations of the original Greek and Hebrew versions made things worse." - he didn't know neither Hebrew nor Greek 🤡 это из Closing of the Western Mind. дальше я читать не стал.

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

два фото


Looking cool in Harlem,1972                   Fashion shoot on Clifton beach,                                                              Cape Argus, 1977

Friday, July 19, 2024

The War On Heresy

“Few things could be more unnerving than the spectacle of young, gifted, attractive people insisting on, even glorying in, a terrible death for an utterly incomprehensible cause, ‘like the martyrs of Christ who (for such a different reason!) were once slain by the pagans for the sake of the Christian religion’.” —The War On Heresy, Moore, R. I.

“the accusation of heresy against Stephen and Lisois was a manoeuvre by the supporters of the Blois faction” -Ibid. pg24

жуткая история на стр 49 про то, как Norman peasants protested to Duke Richard II, ну и вообще про Peace of God.
All systems of social organisation are based on rules governing who may or may not sleep with whom, and on what conditions. Changes in those rules are always bitterly contentious and always indicative of profound social or political change. The most important of them determine what constitutes incest – what degrees of kinship are so close as to prohibit marriage. -pg 83

another book by R.I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society [pdf]

Thursday, June 6, 2024

The Opium War

1839. Trade is the stalwart of the British Empire. China threatens Britain's Opium trade. Britain and China go to war.
это из аннотации к The Opium War. это какой наглостью надо обладать, чтобы написать, что Китай угрожал британской торговле опиумом, не упомянув, что Китай это делал на своей суверенной территории, где торговля и употребление опиума были официально запрещены китайским правительством.

это все равно как если бы колумбийская мафия объявила войну США за то, что им там не дают продавать героин, нарушая тем самым принципы свободной торговли.

я слушал не эту книгу, а Imperial Twilight, зря, наверное, очень много не относящихся к делу деталей.

Sunday, May 26, 2024

The Crusades

listening to The Crusades - Урбан II произнес речь на Клермонском соборе, с которой была срисована вся последующая пропаганда всех времен и народов. про самого Урбана хорошо написано тут:
Во времена папы Урбана II началась жестокая борьба за право назначать светских и церковных владык. Истоки борьбы за инвеституру лежат именно в правлении Урбана II и его борьбе с императором Генрихом IV. На кону стоял вопрос о том, кто имел право возводить в сан епископов — король или папа.
короче, все как всегда.
Additional preachers were deputised to spread the word elsewhere in France, scores of letters extolling the virtues of the crusade were dispatched to other regions (including England, Northern Italy and Brittany) - "in these missives the abbot almost adopted the language of a salesman to promote the crusade." one letter encouraged Christians "not to let the chance pass you by" for example.
see also Melisende Psalter

в целом - ужас ужасный. field of blood и прочее вроде Massacre at Ayyadieh... вспоминается Rivers of Blood через 1 000 лет.

ну и по совокупности — все мочили и грабили всех. это история, и не только крестовых походов.

закончил 6/11

Saturday, May 4, 2024

Monday, April 15, 2024

learned to give up arguing

The sixth century B.C. was arguably the most significant in human evolution since the first caveman inadvertently set fire to his home. Beside witnessing the birth of Confucius, this century also saw the founding of Taoism, the birth of Buddha, and the inception of Greek philosophy. Why these vital intellectual events should have taken place just then, for the most part in civilisations that were in disparate states of development and had no contact with each other, remains a mystery. (Some of the solutions put forward – visits from alien spaceships, exceptional activity on the surface of the sun, brain disease, etc. – would suggest that our mental development has not progressed much since this era.) --Confucius: Philosophy in an Hour by Paul Strathern

дальше там тоже интересно:

What we do know is that Confucius’s father was a minor military official and was seventy at the time of Confucius’s birth. When Confucius was three his father died and he was brought up by his mother. (Curiously, of the dozen or so figures who founded the world’s great philosophies and religions, a large majority were brought up in single-parent families.)

и еще:
‘When I was fifteen I was only interested in studying.’ This was the bedrock of his life, which he would later see as having been divided into distinct stages: ‘… When I was thirty I began my life; at forty I was self-assured; at fifty I understood my place in the vast scheme of things; at sixty I learned to give up arguing; and now at seventy I can do whatever I like without disrupting my life.’
я прямо как сам Конфуций, в том же возрасте научился. а его рассуждения про имена приводят на память Витгенштейна. вот тут про это пишут: Moments of Reticence in the Analects and Wittgenstein

Saturday, December 2, 2023

best history (и не только) books

еще одна ветка от Jash Dholani aka oldbooksguy: What are the best history books? - там, конечно, без конца и без края. хоть что-то я из списка читал, например King Leopold’s Ghost. всё перезабыл, ясное дело.

вот мой старый список. я бы добавил сейчас Yuri Slezkine: The House of Government, хотя бы по фактическому материалу, там представленному. да и интерпретации интересные: Millenarianism и все такое

много рекомендуют в комментариях, к примеру The Origins of Contemporary France, The Glory and the Dream

see also

. Which book best explains the modern world?
. The Bell Curve Reading List
. Mencken's most powerful idea: Democracy is not a solution but a PROBLEM

Sunday, November 19, 2023

Fall of Rome explained

The Fall of Ancient Rome explained in 13 points - Jash Dholani ссылается на книги Льюиса Мамфорда (Lewis Mumford), большей частью The City In History

на картинке - четвертая картина, Крушение, из серии Путь империи Томаса Коула. see also in Wiki


ну в общем все 13 points сводятся к Panem et circenses

Thursday, November 16, 2023

father of lies

They call Herodotus the ‘father of history’ but also the ‘father of lies.’ That tells you something about what history is. Consider that journalists sometimes praise their work as ‘the first draft of history,’ and that old newspapers are sources for later historians. Then consider how much bullshit you read in the news. @FischerKing64
a few replies: “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” - Thomas Jefferson
You'll notice that many college graduates have a strange, almost mystical reverence for sources. As if any claim they can find in a library is somehow a fact.

It's not until graduate school that they learn to have some skepticism of "primary sources." @SeattleIndepen1

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

the Weimar republic would follow

OTD in 1918, the abdication of the German throne by Kaiser Wilhelm II was announced by German Chancellor, Prince Maximilian of Baden. The Kaiser's end was insisted on by US President Wilson, one of his many disastrous ideas...the Weimar republic would follow @GrayConnolly
some comments:

- I’m sure everything was fine after that right??

- Losing a war has consequences.
- consequences also have consequences

Saturday, November 4, 2023

борьба иудаизма с идолопоклонством

Toilet Found in 3,000-Year-Old Shrine Verifies Bible Stories Against Idol Worship - это Newsweek, но вот в Haarez подтверждают: Ancient Toilet Reveals the Unique Way the Judeans Fought Idol-worship. забавно, что в Haarez слово Bible избегают, как и слово Torah. это по результатам познавательной лекции одного Игоря Торика (говорящая фаммилия?) История иудаизма. Научный взгляд. [youtube]

там много интересного, не только про то, как с язычниками боролись с помощью сортиров. он там среди прочего упоминает цитату Историю пишут победители - это вовсе не Черчилль, а Дрекслер, хотя по смыслу похоже. но по близкому поводу отлично высказался Маск: историю пишут победители, а Википедию исправляют проигравшие

еще этот Игорь Торик упоминает Каро, Иосеф и Устный Закон, и всякие другие чудеса. я про это ничего не знал, надо почитать.

Thursday, October 26, 2023

slavery and war

@SallyMayweather

upd 10/29: интересно, что памятник генералу Ли на днях расплавили, но в Wiki это пока не упомянуто.

Friday, July 28, 2023

Saturday, July 15, 2023

The high cost of vengeance

The high cost of vengeance by Freda Utley
The pen is still mightier than the sword and responsible for more human misery when unscrupulously employed in "psychological warfare." As Samuel Johnson wrote in the eighteenth century : "I know not whether more is to be feared from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lie."

Chapter 1, Road to War

это она пишет по поводу истории вообще и истории немецко-французских отношенией в частности. и вот кстати о Рузвельте:
President Roosevelt, by torpedoing the London Economic Conference and devaluating the dollar, gave a further mighty impetus to the economic warfare which was the curtain-raiser to the tragedy of World War II.
вот кстати Байден спотыкается

еще полезно прочесть Chapter 6 The Nuremberg Judgments, "Woe to the Vanquished." и тому подобное. и конечно Chapter 7 Our Crimes against Humanity

It was impossible to travel through the devastated towns of the Western zones without it seeming strange and horrible that we should sit in judgment on the Germans who had never succeeded in killing nearly so many civilians as we did, or in perpetrating worse atrocities than our obliteration bombing of whole cities.
и так далее. там много познавательного, например начиная со слов The effect of my remarks... про Judge Edward Leroy van Roden Allied War Crimes In Germany

Thursday, June 29, 2023

Japanese resistance ... was already negligible

Apologists for the Yalta concessions maintain that Japan in February 1945 presented the aspect of a formidable, unbeaten enemy. Therefore, so the argument runs, Roosevelt was justified in paying a price for Soviet intervention, in the interest of ending the war quickly and saving American lives.

But Japanese resistance to American air and naval attacks on its own coasts was already negligible. American warships were able to cruise along the shores of Japan, bombarding at will. According to an account later published by Arthur Krock, of the New York Times, an Air Force general presented a report at Yalta pointing to the complete undermining of the Japanese capacity to resist. --America's Second Crusade, pg 218

все-таки привожу еще один отрывок, для сравнения с оправданиями атомных бомбардировок, которые в свете этого - бесстыдное вранье.

еще забавно на стр. 227: Eisenhower was profoundly innocent in high politics. - он хотел сказать ignorant, наверное.

The manipulation of public opinion at home and abroad in time of war is a necessary but delicate task. It should be entrusted only to individuals of proved patriotism.
вторая половина книги посвящена провалам администрации Рузвельта (и правительства Черчилля) в отношениях с кровавым сталиным. а надо было: угрожать сепаратным миром с Германией, прекращением поставок по ленд-лизу, и тому подобным, тогда сталин бы испугался и уступил Польшу и прочее, вот как. опять же много рыданий по поводу communist sympathizers в рузвельтовской администрации, ну и шпионы конечно.
Stalin questioned the expediency of the “ unconditional surrender” formula at the Teheran Conference. He felt that it merely served to unite the German people. The announcement of specific terms, however harsh, in Stalin's opinion would hasten the German capitulation.

But Roosevelt clung to his pet phrase with an obstinacy worthy of a better cause. His vanity and prestige were deeply involved.

Черчилль тоже: The principle of Unconditional Surrender will be adhered to so far as Nazi Germany and Japan are concerned
It is certainly arguable that if the statesmen in Paris in 1919 had been as reasonable and cool-headed as their predecessors in Vienna a century earlier and worked out a peace of moderation, the Hitlerite madness would never have possessed the German people.

...
It is sometimes suggested that the Morgenthau Plan has been exaggerated or misrepresented. There is no excuse for misunderstanding, however, because Morgenthau himself has published the full text of the plan in a book which contains elaborate suggestions about why and how it should be put into effect. pg 304

и дальше там он объясняет почему Черчилль согласился на план Моргентау. познавательно.

Sunday, June 25, 2023

America's Second Crusade

Neutrality legislation, passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress and adopted in finally revised form on May 1, 1937, completely repudiated Wilson’s position.

The Act in its final form provided that “whenever the President shall find that there exists a state of war between or among two or more foreign states”, certain measures should automatically come into effect.

There was to be an embargo on the sale of arms, munitions, and implements of war to all belligerents. American citizens were forbidden to travel on belligerent ships and to buy or sell securities of warring powers. Such products as cotton, scrap iron, and oil could be sold to belligerents, but could not be transported in American ships. This was the so-called cash-and-carry arrangement.

начало тут. познавательная книга, цитировать можно без конца.

I give you my deep and unalterable conviction, based on years of experience as a worker in the field of international peace, that by the repeal of the embargo the United States will more probably remain at peace than if the law remains as it stands today.
more probably... highly likely...
That American sympathy is ninety-eight per cent with the Finns in their effort to stave off invasion of their own soil is by now axiomatic.
это почему же ninety-eight разрешите спросить
A president who cannot entrust the people with the truth betrays a certain lack of faith in the basic tenets of democracy. But because the masses are notoriously shortsighted and generally cannot see danger until it is at their throats our statesmen are forced to deceive them into an awareness of their own long run interests.
вот, собственно, и все, что нужно знать о демократии.

Stalin, who loved to practice the old maxim, Divide and Rule, could have wished nothing better. - интересно, где он этому научился? у хулиганов во дворе? ну и невозможно не процитировать

Churchill tried to reach a satisfactory separate agreement with Stalin. As is shown in another chapter, Churchill took the initiative in the dismemberment of Poland at Teheran. In an attempt to “ compensate" Poland for the territory which he wished to hand over to Stalin, the British Prime Minister threw the weight of his influence behind the idea of expelling millions of Germans from the eastern part of that country.
там дальше цитата из старины Черчилля как раз об этом.

на стр. 189 он пишет про разговор Хопкинса со Сталиным о Польше, упрекая Сталина во лжи. на самом деле нагло врет сам автор, Chamberlin. и по поводу второго фронта - скверное вранье и передергивание. ну не любит Chamberlin русских и Сталина, но передергивать-то зачем?

The Morgenthau Plan, which Roosevelt and Churchill had approved at Quebec, recommended “forced German labor outside Germany” as a form of reparations.

еще

Sunday, June 18, 2023

waiting for some "overt act"

The German leaders, however, did not anticipate the good fortune that was awaiting them in the East. They decided to stake everything on the submarine card. Wilson promptly broke off diplomatic relations. Then there was a pause, a period of waiting for some “overt act” . Sir Cecil Spring Rice, the British Ambassador in Washington, was praying for “the destruction of an American ship with American passengers.” --America's Second Crusade by William Henry Chamberlin
познавательная книжка, в первой главе про Allied propagandists, German “atrocities” etc и многое другое. еще там чуть дальше про treaty of alliance with Mexico и о том, что Zimmerman’s proposal is indistinguishable from the territorial bribes with which the Allies induced Italy and Rumania. - очень смешно.
The greatest failure of all was in “ making the world safe, for democracy.” Communism and fascism, not democracy, were the authentic political offspring of World War I.

...
Fifteen years ago came the Armistice and we all thought it was to be a new world. It is! But a lot worse than it was before.

Вильсона уместно сравнить с мистером Смитом из Комедиантов. не имел ли его в виду Грин? прошло-то всего полвека. впрочем, персонаж типический...
Many of the German demands would have been reasonable if they had not been made by a paranoid dictator and would-be conqueror like Hitler.
ох не все считали его paranoid dictator в 1936-м, мне кажется. особенно в Британии.

еще

на amazon 4.9 rating.

Thursday, June 15, 2023

Everything You Know ... Is Wrong

Why Everything You Know About World War II Is Wrong - это Unz, заголовок можно сократить, выкинуть About World War II

там много всякого, в частности я не знал про Operation Pike, ну и про многое другое. заодно наткнулся на Соглашение Сайкса — Пико. комментировать нет смысла. в общем этот текст - хороший справочник, упоминаются интересные книги, например America's Second Crusade. прочесть не прочту, но хоть надкушу.

еще упоминают Other Losses by James Bacque, книга вызвала жуткий скандал в 90-х, когда она вышла. вот для справки статья в Independent Book review / The massacre of truth, там больше, правда, про другую его книгу, Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, 1944-1950. я, конечно, сказать ничего не могу, на эту тему немало книг вышло за последнее время, вот еще одна: After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation, взял в библиотеке.

Wednesday, June 14, 2023

дотянулся проклятый Грозный

Piedmontese Easter: ...massacres on Waldensians ... by Savoyard troops in the Duchy of Savoy in 1655. Estimates of how many Waldensians were killed during the Piedmontese Easter vary widely, including "more than a thousand", "4,000 to 6,000", and "6,000".

или нет, Грозный умер в 1584-м, вроде. ну значит кровавый Сталин.

еще подробности в статье Waldensians, в частности про Massacre of Mérindol (1545), это уж вполне мог Грозный устроить

я уж не говорю про Альбигойские войны господибожемой