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Ralph Vaughan Williams should be as revered as Shakespeare

Ralph Vaughan Williams should be as revered as Shakespeare

"There is the irony that, long before the nostalgia industry hijacked Vaughan Williams, he, to an extent, hijacked it. His collecting of folk-songs in the first decade of the last century was an act of massive cultural importance"
The map that changed the world

The map that changed the world

Almost exactly 500 years ago, in 1507, Martin Waldseemuller and Matthias Ringmann, two obscure Germanic scholars based in the mountains of eastern France, made one of the boldest...
The death of language?

The death of language?

"What we lose is essentially an enormous cultural heritage, the way of expressing the relationship with nature, with the world, between themselves in the framework of their families, their kin..."
Book Review | The Storm of War

Book Review | The Storm of War

The Russians have a saying that there is no such thing as cold weather, only the wrong kind of clothing. Prior to Operation Barbarossa, the Nazis could have...
Ancient Trade and Civilization

Ancient Trade and Civilization

Ancient trade originated in the migratory patterns of prehistoric nomadic people who ranged over long distances across the continents of Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America, for thousands of years...
Silchester dig reveals how ancient Britons built a thriving city

Silchester dig reveals how ancient Britons built a thriving city

Almost a century before the Romans arrived in 43 AD, a town of up to 10,000 people was laid out...
From Iron Curtain to Green Belt: How new life came to the death strip

From Iron Curtain to Green Belt: How new life came to the death strip

"The barbed wire and watchtowers of the former death strip have all gone. The only visible trace is a seemingly endless tank track, constructed from perforated, and now weed-covered, concrete slabs."
End of the Silk Road for historic trading hub of Kashgar

End of the Silk Road for historic trading hub of Kashgar

The famed trading hub on the Silk Road, on which caravans carrying silk and jade from China...
Book Review | The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis

Book Review | The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis

Cobb admirably traces the evolution of local resistance groups, which in the early years of occupation...
The unseen photographs that throw new light on the First World War

The unseen photographs that throw new light on the First World War

"The time is the winter of 1915 and the spring and summer of 1916. Hundreds of thousands of British and Empire soldiers, are preparing for The Big Push, the biggest British offensive of the 1914-18 war..."
Spanish Empire Bead Cache Found Off Georgia

Spanish Empire Bead Cache Found Off Georgia

A cache of some 70,000 glass beads from all over the world has been unearthed at an island off Georgia, comprising the largest repository ever from what was...
Saving Historic Kabul

Saving Historic Kabul

Afghan shoppers began to come back into the area and the drug peddlers, who had long made Murad Khane one of their central markets, moved elsewhere...
Lanterns, Fortunes, and Tea

Lanterns, Fortunes, and Tea

"We sit around a table as a young woman meticulously embarks on the Taiwanese ceremony of serving tea, from the warming of the clay teapot and cups with hot water, the filling of the pot with tea leaves, then the pouring of the water until it overflows..."
In China, the Forgotten Manchu Seek to Rekindle Their Glory

In China, the Forgotten Manchu Seek to Rekindle Their Glory

Hasutai is a Manchu, descendant of a nomadic warrior tribe that conquered China in the 17th century and ruled it for more than 250 years. Generations of persecution have all but eliminated the Manchus' language.
Britain's World War II films were more than just propaganda

Britain's World War II films were more than just propaganda

The Second World War was, when filmed propaganda came into its own, one of the reasons...
A Postmodern Middle Ages

A Postmodern Middle Ages

"Europe invented, named, and shaped all eras of history -- and will continue to do so in the future. The classical world is defined by the flourishing of Greece; the Middle Ages followed the sacking of Rome..."
Book Review | The Origins of Globalization

Book Review | The Origins of Globalization

"The Shang and Zhou eras are pictured as a golden age where everyone knew his or her place in the great harmonious hierarchy of Chinese life. Rulers ruled and everyone farmed, studied or practiced an appropriate trade."
Chama Gudao –Tibet and the Tea-Horse Road

Chama Gudao –Tibet and the Tea-Horse Road

At elevations above 12,000 feet, snowstorms are common even in the summer, and the Tibetan tribesmen considered the Nangchen horse essential to survival when navigating the wild rivers...
The road between China and Pakistan

The road between China and Pakistan

From here to Gilgit, the Karakoram Highway passes through a green oasis: a river valley terraced with fields and lined by apricot groves. The road clings to the river, into which glaciers – walls of rugged ice, dazzling...
The Godfather of American Liberalism

The Godfather of American Liberalism

Wells’s version of socialism, with its barbed attacks on Victorian gentility and its promise of sexual and artistic liberation, was far more appealing to American intellectuals than the...
1989: When Reality Began to Byte

1989: When Reality Began to Byte

"Massive computing power and speed have improved our killing machines beyond recognition and made it possible for police, prod-nosed bureaucrats and bullet-headed salesmen to spy on every move we make."
It's Still Important to Understand Mao as China takes the Capitalist Road

It's Still Important to Understand Mao as China takes the Capitalist Road

“At Dashanzi, the bauhaus-style factory transformed into a trendy arts precinct in northeast Beijing, any number of contemporary artists make fun -- and money -- at Mao's expense...”