~hackernews | Bookmarks (21)
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William Adams: English Advisor to the Shogun
In 1600 a Dutch galleon arrived on the shores of a small fief on Kyushu, the...
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Political Graffiti in Georgian Britain
In December 1731 an anonymous author was preparing for the publication of the third edition of...
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'Sparta and the Commemoration of War' and 'The Killing Ground' Review
Two very different volumes, Sparta and the Commemoration of War and The Killing Ground: A Biography...
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Beware the Lides of March
March is the month which proverbially ‘comes in like a lion and goes out like a...
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Measuring the Shape of the Earth
In 1726 Voltaire faced a not very difficult choice: imprisonment without trial in the Bastille, or...
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What Do We Get Wrong About the Byzantine Empire?
Anthony Kaldellis is author of The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford University Press,...
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Ancient Rome's Failed Building Projects
Troubled construction projects are perennially in the news. When looking for historical parallels of grand and...
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The End of Britain's Weeks-Long General Elections
‘When it comes to the point’, wrote Roy Jenkins, ‘one of the clearest prerogatives of a...
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Jackie Coogan and the fall of Hollywood's child stars
Charlie Chaplin’s first full-length feature film, The Kid (1921), remains one of the great masterpieces of...
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Maria Graham and the Valparaíso Earthquake
‘Small Earthquake in Chile, Not many dead.’ The journalist Claud Cockburn supposedly won a prize for...
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'With Her Own Hair': A Victorian Prisoner's Art
A Deptford woman named Annie Parker sat in a dank, cold cell in Kent’s Maidstone Gaol...
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Queen Victoria's Stalker
In autumn 1837 Captain Jonathan Childe, an officer in the 12th Lancers, became convinced that the...
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How to Revive Wassailing
When I give talks about the medieval festival year, one of the questions people most often...
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Medieval Icelandic Feasts
In the Icelandic sagas communal feasting served as cornerstone of celebration. A thousand years on, these...
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'The End of Enlightenment' by Richard Whatmore Review
What was the Enlightenment? Damned if I know. There have been so many books devoted to...
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The Death of Caspar Hauser
Caspar Hauser died on 17 December 1833, but was it murder or a self-inflicted wound? Hauser’s...
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Victorian Romantic Rituals and Charms
The setting is Christmas Eve, after a rollicking holiday party in North Yorkshire. While the rest...
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Why the Oracle of Delphi Still Beguiles
Phoebus Apollo, the sun god, had a good eye for an inspiring location. According to the...
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How Did Christianity Change the Roman Empire?
Peter Sarris is Professor of Late Antique, Medieval and Byzantine Studies at Trinity College, Cambridge and...
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The 50 Years That Made America
It was the evening of 16 December 1773. At Boston’s Old South Meeting House, more than...