Quotulatiousness

June 6, 2020

ϟϟ Foreign Fighters Part 1 – The Non-German Germanics Fighting for Hitler – WW2 Special

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published 5 Jun 2020

The SS are the elite force of the Third Reich, representing everything good about the German race. But half of them will one day be foreign-born non-Germans. How did this happen?

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Spartacus Olsson
Written by: Francis van Berkel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Francis van Berkel
Edited by: Mikołaj Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
Dememorabilia – https://www.instagram.com/dememorabilia/

Sources:
Bundesarchiv
Riksarkivet, image no. Fo30141711140064, Fo30141711140100_67, Fo30141711140102, Fo30141711140092
National Museum of Denmark
National Archives of Denmark
National Library of Norway
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
USHMM
from the Noun Project: Glasses by Yeong Rong Kim, Smile by The Icon Z, family tree by Kid Kitaro

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Johannes Bornlof – “The Inspector 4”
Philip Ayers – “Trapped in a Maze”
Reynard Seidel – “Deflection”
Johannes Bornlof – “Deviation In Time”
Fabien Tell – “Last Point of Safe Return”
Rannar Sillard – “March Of The Brave 10”
Gunnar Johnsen – “Not Safe Yet”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
1 hour ago (edited)
If you came for the glory of the SS you will be disappointed by this video, there is nothing cool about the SS, truly nothing. They represent the most terrible part of humanity and perpetrated the worst crimes against humanity that you can imagine, things a short video like this cannot do justice on its own. To understand the depths of these horrors we recommend that you follow our War Against Humanity series, also hosted by Spartacus here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsIk0qF0R1j4cwI-ZuDoBLxVEV3egWKoM

Pope Fights 3 — The Italian Wars: History Summarized

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 5 Jun 2020

It’s time for a POPE FIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!! Gather ’round and listen to a tale of the utter nonsense that is the Renaissance Papacy. We’ll look at the Pontifical careers of Rodrigo Borgia, Julius II, Leo X, and Clement VII.

SOURCES & Further Reading: Rome: A History In Seven Sackings by Kneale, A History of Venice by Norwich.

This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

PATREON: https://www.Patreon.com/OSP

MERCH LINKS: https://www.redbubble.com/people/OSPY…

OUR WEBSITE: https://www.OverlySarcasticProductions.com
Find us on Twitter https://www.Twitter.com/OSPYouTube
Find us on Reddit https://www.Reddit.com/r/OSP/

June 5, 2020

Hundred Years War | 3 Minute History

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Jabzy
Published 18 Oct 2015

Thanks to Xios, Alan Haskayne, Lachlan Lindenmayer, William Crabb, Derpvic, Seth Reeves and all my other Patrons. If you want to help out – https://www.patreon.com/Jabzy?ty=h

Apologies, especially to the Patreon supporters for not uploading recently, I’ve changed jobs/moved house etc. I should be back on the usual schedule now.

Plus, thanks for the 12,000 subs.

June 4, 2020

Performance, Plague, and Politics in Shakespeare’s London

Filed under: Britain, Health, History, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Atun-Shei Films
Published 27 Mar 2020

Help us make the first feature film ever made (that we know of) spoken entirely in Original Pronunciation, the accent of Shakespeare: https://igg.me/at/sudburydevil/x/1502…

Did William Shakespeare write King Lear under quarantine? That is the question. In this video I introduce you to the actor’s process in Elizabethan theater; dive deep into first-hand accounts of the bubonic plague epidemics that Shakespeare lived through; explore the politics of late 16th and early 17th century England, onstage and off; and discuss OP, Original Early Modern English Pronunciation, the accent and dialect in which the Bard’s plays were originally performed.

The rest is silence.

Support Atun-Shei Films on Patreon ► https://www.patreon.com/atunsheifilms

#English #Theater #History

Watch our film ALIEN, BABY! free with Prime ► http://a.co/d/3QjqOWv
Reddit ► https://www.reddit.com/r/atunsheifilms
Twitter ► https://twitter.com/atun_shei
Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/atunsheifilms
Merch ► https://atun-sheifilms.bandcamp.com

From the comments:

Atun-Shei Films
1 month ago
CORRECTION: The Great Vowel Shift was a SEPARATE linguistic trend to the R-dropping in 18th century English. My mistake, sorry!

Tank Chats #71 M3 Stuart Hybrid | The Tank Museum

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Tank Museum
Published 29 Mar 2019

David Fletcher talks about the Second World War M3 Stuart and why this particular version is a hybrid.

The M3 Stuart was built by the USA for WW2 and went into service in 1941. The tank in this video was gifted to The Tank Museum by the Brazilian Army.

Support the work of The Tank Museum on Patreon: ► https://www.patreon.com/tankmuseum

Visit The Tank Museum SHOP: ► https://tankmuseumshop.org/
Twitter: ► https://twitter.com/TankMuseum
Tiger Tank Blog: ► http://blog.tiger-tank.com/
Tank 100 First World War Centenary Blog: ► http://tank100.com/ #tankmuseum #tanks #tankchats

June 3, 2020

How to be a Pirate: Quartermaster Edition 📙📈

Filed under: Britain, Business, Economics, History, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

CGP Grey
Published 2 Jun 2020

‣ Adapted largely from The Invisible Hook. It’s great, go read it: https://amzn.to/36PLKSE
‣ Director’s Commentary later today: https://www.patreon.com/cgpgrey

## Special Thanks

Peter T. Leeson for reviewing a draft of the script. Check out his newest book, WTF?!: An Economic Tour of the Weird: https://amzn.to/3eEMm09

## Crowdfunders

Steven Snow, Bob Kunz, John Buchan, Nevin Spoljaric, Donal Botkin, BN-12, Chris Chapin, Richard Jenkins, Phil Gardner, Martin, سليمان العقل, Steven Grimm, Colin Millions, Saki Comandao, Jason Lewandowski, Andrea Di Biagio, David F Watson, Ben Schwab, Elliot Lepley, rictic, Bobby, Marco Arment, Shallon Brown, Shantanu Raj, emptymachine, George Lin, Henry Ng, Jeffrey Podis, Thunda Plum, Awoo, David Tyler, Derek Bonner, Derek Jackson, Fuesu, iulus, Jordan Earls, Joshua Jamison, Mikko, Nick Fish, Nick Gibson, Orbit_Junkie, Ron Bowes, Tómas Árni Jónasson, Tyler Bryant, Zach Whittle, Oliver Steele, Kermit Norlund, Kevin Costello, Ben Delo, Arctic May, Bear, chrysilis, David Palomares, Emil, Erik Parasiuk, Esteban Santana Santana, Freddi Hørlyck, Frederick The Great, John Rogers, ken mcfarlane, Leon, Maarten van der Blij, Peter Lomax, Rhys Parry, ShiroiYami, Tijmen van Dien, Tristan Watts-Willis, Veronica Peshterianu, Dag Viggo Lokøen, John Lee, Maxime Zielony, Bryan McLemore, Elizabeth Keathley, Alex Simonides, Felix Weis, Melvin Sowah, Giulio Bontadini, Paul Alom, Ryan Tripicchio, Scot Melville

## Music

David Rees: http://www.davidreesmusic.com

The Wehrmacht‘s License to Kill the Innocent – War Against Humanity 012 – May 1941

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 2 Jun 2020

As the Blitzes of Britain slow down considerably, violence in Croatia increases dramatically as the Ustaše government purges the country of Jews and Serbs and the Wehrmacht gets deadly instructions for their invasion of the Soviet Union.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Spartacus Olsson
Written by: Joram Appel and Spartacus Olsson
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Mikołaj Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/
Adrien Fillon – https://www.instagram.com/adrien.colo…
Carlos Ortega Pereira – BlauColorizations, https://www.instagram.com/blaucoloriz…
Cassowary Colorizations – https://www.flickr.com/people/cassowa…

Sources:
Bundesarchiv
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
IWM D 5984, D 1091
USHMM

Bibliography:
Barton, Brian, “A Belfast Blitz Memorial?”. In: History Ireland 24:2 (March/April 2016) 8-9.
Biondich, Mark, “Religion and Nation in Wartime Croatia: Reflections on the Ustaša Policy of Forced Religious Conversions, 1941-1942″. In: The Slavonic and East European Review 83:1 (Jan 2005) 71-116.
Clapson, Mark, “Air Raids in Britain, 1940-45”. In: The Blitz companion: Aerial Warfare, Civilians and the City since 1911 (2019) 37-76.
Gotovich, Aron, Dictionnaire de La Seconde Guerre Mondiale En Belgique (2008).
MacDonald, David B., “From Jasenovac to Srebrenica; Subaltern Genocide and the Serbs”. In: Nicholas Robins, Adam Jones (ed.), Genocides by the Oppressed: Subaltern Genocide in Theory and Practice (2009) 103-121, 106.
Tanner, Marcus, “The Ustashe”. In: Croatia: A Nation Forged in War; Third Edition (2010) 141-167.
Williamson, Murray, and Allan Millett, “Barbarossa 1941”. In: A War To Be Won (2000) 110-142.

Primary Sources:
Barbarossa Decree, 13 May 1941. http://users.clas.ufl.edu/ggiles/barb….
Commissar Order, 6 June 1941. http://users.clas.ufl.edu/ggiles/barb….
William Sansom: Westminster in War, 1947.

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Cobby Costa – “From the Past”
Reynard Seidel – “Deflection”
Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
Gunnar Johnsen – “Not Safe Yet”
Farell Wooten – “Blunt Object”
Peter Sandberg – “Document This 1”
Andreas Jamsheree – “Guilty Shadows 4”
Cobby Costa – “Flight Path”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
2 hours ago
For many living in newly occupied territories in South-Eastern Europe, May 1941 marked the start of a hellish life under fascist occupation. For many more, May 1941 will be the month in which their fate is sealed. Many hundreds of thousands more will suffer by the decisions made this months. From this episode, and the next ones, it will become very clear that there is no such thing as a “clean Wehrmacht“, and that this is very much a myth. Some parts of the internet still seem to hold on tight to this, but we will counter it time and again, wether it is about occupying forces, Operation Barbarossa or Erwin Rommel.

Cheers,
Joram

Fanatics gonna fanatic … they can’t help it

It’s funny that no matter what the claimed crisis, the answers always go in the same direction, as Kristian Niemietz points out with the demands to turn our still unending lockdown toward “protecting the environment”:

The change, superficially, is to encourage “a safe return to work” allowing more social distancing between pedestrians, but more substantially in order to preserve the cleaner air that has resulted from the lockdown.

The health and safety excuse for the policy change can be largely dismissed. The simple truth of the pandemic and national policy is that if social distancing matters, the centre of London is not safe to return to work. It is too densely populated and almost entirely reliant on mass transit which cannot operate above 10-15% capacity with 2m exclusion rules. With average commutes over 9 miles each way, substitution effects to walking and cycling will be extremely limited and temporary.

It is then hard to see then how the policy’s architects imagine the streets will fill up to the extent urgent measures are needed. Conversely, if social distancing does not matter (and it will cease to matter eventually), then a policy to enable more social distancing outside by widening the pedestrian streetscape is redundant. If it is safe to sit on a crowded train, it is safe to walk on a crowded pavement. It is not hard then to cut through the pandemic packaging to note that the motive for this policy is opportunistic, to accelerate a pedestrianisation plan that is the dream of many an urban planner.

Many will see this as self-evidently a good thing. Removing vehicle traffic from densely populated narrow streets will reduce air pollution, congestion and road traffic accidents. As a policy it will have more supporters than opponents; very few people drive into the centre of London to commute and there is very little capacity for parking. London’s leaders are not wrong to think that this is the future, the question is really one of timing and how they go about it, which is far more difficult and does not have anything to do with managing a coronavirus.

What the pandemic allows is the ability to use emergency powers for something that is not an emergency. This matters, in normal times it took several years to close one dangerous junction at Bank to most traffic, and this under a hail of protests from local businesses and taxi drivers. The same result can now be achieved in a few weeks across many streets. The democratic checks and balances that differentiate the UK from authoritarian states can be ditched and London officialdom granted extraordinary powers to do as they please. If the protestors don’t like it this time, they should note the right to protest has also been suspended, at least for now.

June 2, 2020

The Fall Of The Roman Empire With Tom Holland | History Hit LIVE on Timeline

Filed under: Europe, History, Middle East — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Timeline – World History Documentaries
Published 29 May 2020

The Roman Empire remains one of the most enduring and prolific civilisations of written history. Yet it, like all great civilisations, would eventually come to an end. Join Dan Snow as he speaks to historian Tom Holland about the many contributing factors that would bring this seismic and seemingly invincible empire to its knees.

#StayHome #WithMe #FallOfRome

June 1, 2020

How to be a Pirate 🏴‍☠️

Filed under: Britain, History, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

CGP Grey
Published 30 May 2020

‣ Adapted largely from The Invisible Hook. It’s great, go read it: https://amzn.to/36PLKSE
‣ Thank you, my Patrons, for making this video possible: https://www.patreon.com/posts/37699725

## Special Thanks

Peter T. Leeson for reviewing a draft of the script. Check out his newest book, WTF?!: An Economic Tour of the Weird: https://amzn.to/3eEMm09

## Crowdfunders

Steven Snow, Bob Kunz, John Buchan, Nevin Spoljaric, Donal Botkin, BN-12, Chris Chapin, Richard Jenkins, Phil Gardner, Martin, سليمان العقل, Steven Grimm, Colin Millions, Saki Comandao, Jason Lewandowski, Andrea Di Biagio, David F Watson, Ben Schwab, Elliot Lepley, rictic, Bobby, Marco Arment, Shallon Brown, Shantanu Raj, emptymachine, George Lin, Henry Ng, Jeffrey Podis, Thunda Plum, Awoo, David Tyler, Derek Bonner, Derek Jackson, Fuesu, iulus, Jordan Earls, Joshua Jamison, Mikko, Nick Fish, Nick Gibson, Orbit_Junkie, Ron Bowes, Tómas Árni Jónasson, Tyler Bryant, Zach Whittle, Oliver Steele, Kermit Norlund, Kevin Costello, Ben Delo, Arctic May, Bear, chrysilis, David Palomares, Emil, Erik Parasiuk, Esteban Santana Santana, Freddi Hørlyck, Frederick The Great, John Rogers, ken mcfarlane, Leon, Maarten van der Blij, Peter Lomax, Rhys Parry, ShiroiYami, Tijmen van Dien, Tristan Watts-Willis, Veronica Peshterianu, Dag Viggo Lokøen, John Lee, Maxime Zielony, Bryan McLemore, Elizabeth Keathley, Alex Simonides, Felix Weis, Melvin Sowah, Giulio Bontadini, Paul Alom, Ryan Tripicchio, Scot Melville

## Music

David Rees: http://www.davidreesmusic.com

The true GOAT

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Sports — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Nigel Davies explains why even the greatest athletes and sportspersons of today are no match for the Greatest Of All Time – William the Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke:

Head of the effigy of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, in Temple Church, London.
Photo by Kjetil Bjørnsrud via Wikimedia Commons.

William the Marshall is almost universally recognised as “the best knight that ever lived”, by all those who consider his extraordinary career as a fighter, warrior, war leader, political leader, guardian, and shining light of courtly and knightly achievements at the height of the chivalric and troubadouring shift (that moved culture from adoring thugs who hit hard, to adoring all round “renaissance men” who could dance, sing, write poetry, play chess, fight, and negotiate treaties that bought peace to generations). He was one of the men whom the word “paragon” — a person or thing regarded as a perfect example of a particular quality — was invented for.

But he was also the GOAT athlete and sportsman.

Tournament fighting and jousting were the Olympic Games of the medieval world, and — far from being an elitist sport, or an act of middle class pretention — tournament fighting in both its foot and horseback forms is a sport common to all classes from all cultures throughout most of human history … from the Olympics and gladiatorial combats, to the foot combat of Fencing and Kendo and Judo, to the horse archery of most of the nomadic tribes of Asia and Africa and even the American Indians: combat games are virtually the only universal human sport there has ever been.

William the Marshall was competing at a sport — armed combat — that is universal, worldwide, and largely classless. Admittedly he was competing at the most elite level (only the Samurai or Persian or Eastern Roman Cataphracts really come close to European kinghts for an equivalent dedication to a lifetime of training and specialist equipment and expense). But you can confidently say that here was a sport whose experts could face any other expert in any other combat sport in the world without confusion or fear.

And you could confidently predict that William the Marshall could defeat the equivalent character in any of those other combat sports … (As he apparently did when he fought Muslim horse archers or Mameluke foot soldiers in his brief years on Crusade.)

As a man whose prowess in his chosen field could adapt to all equivalent fields, he certainly outranks Muhammed Ali: who is the closest competitor on the above list to a world class showman and rough and tumble performer for the crowds.

As a person who statistically outperformed even Donald Bradman in comparison to his competition. He comes out in front there too.

As a winner above all others — his deathbed comment that he had bested more than 500 knights in hs career from all over Europe and the Middle East is not something that a squash player with 555 wins is likely to compare.

And as an athletic freak, even Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps — with their scant decade or so of dominance, could dream of competing with.

William the Marshall won his first international class tournaments in his teens, and was still winning them in his 60s. His unsurpassed competitiveness lasted not a few years, but several decades. He beat the GRANDCHILDREN of his previous conquests. And did so in a deadly serious full contact sport, not a namby pamby game like tennis or golf!

May 31, 2020

Sink the Bismarck! – The Pride of the Kriegsmarine‘s Demise – WW2 – 092 – May 30 1941

Filed under: Britain, China, Germany, History, Japan, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 30 May 2020

This week, the Battle of Crete continues as the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen set sail to the Atlantic, starting one of the most dramatic episodes in the histories of the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: NN
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
– Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/
– Daniel Weiss
– Jaris Almazani (Artistic Man), https://instagram.com/artistic.man?ig…
– Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations, https://www.instagram.com/blaucoloriz…

Sources:
– Imperial War Museum: A 6152, A 6155, A 3898, IWM A4057, HU 50190, HU 374, FL 2120, E 3464, E 450
– U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– Drawing of Churchill from Museon
– Battlecruiser Renown shape by Emoscopes from Wikimedia

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

May 30, 2020

QotD: The “Americanization” of German philosophy

Filed under: Germany, History, Media, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

This popularization of German philosophy in the United States is of peculiar interest to me because I have watched it occur during my own intellectual lifetime, and I feel a little like someone who knew Napoleon when he was six. I have seen value relativism and its concomitants grow greater in the land than anyone imagined. Who in 1920 would have believed that Max Weber’s technical sociological terminology would someday be the everyday language of the United States, the land of the Philistines, itself in the meantime become the most powerful nation in the world? The self-understanding of hippies, yippies, yuppies, panthers, prelates and presidents has unconsciously been formed by German thought of a half-century earlier; Herbert Marcuse’s accent has been turned into a Middle Western twang; the echt Deutsch label has been replaced by a Made in America label; and the new American life-style has become a Disneyland version of the Weimar Republic for the whole family.

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, 1987.

May 29, 2020

Der Bismarck: Doomed to Fail? – WW2 Biography Special

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published 28 May 2020

The Bismarck is without a doubt a force to be reckoned with. But with the Kriegsmarine experiencing an identity crisis throughout the 1930s, the Bismarck‘s design and strategic purpose foreshadow a dramatic ending.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv
Check out our TimeGhost History YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timeghost?s…

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Joram Appel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Mikołaj Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
Ruffneck88, Wikimedia Commons
Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/

Sources:
Bundesarchiv
IWM HU 374, HU 67486, HU 1041, HU 108392, A 6155, D 2373, HU 55631
From the Noun Project: Game by Ecem Afacan, Shield by Nikita Kozin

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Phoenix Tail – “At the Front”
Johannes Bornlof – “The Inspector 4”
Rannar Sillard – “March Of The Brave 10”
Max Anson – “Ancient Saga”
Johannes Bornlof – “Deviation In Time”
Reynard Seidel – “Deflection”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

Theodore Dalrymple reviews 100 Principles for a New World by Nicolas Hulot

Filed under: Books, France — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 05:00

It’s kind of subtle, but I don’t think he’s a fan of the writer or his work:

Theodore Dalrymple on 24 September 2007.
Photo by jaapstronks at Flickr via Wikimedia Commons.

No opinion is worth expressing that is not also worth contradicting (except, perhaps, this one); nevertheless, clichés have their attraction. They are the teddy-bears of the mind, or, to change the metaphor slightly, the mental lifebuoys we cling to in times of stormy intellectual or political weather. They are the sovereign remedy for thought, which is always a rather painful activity.

“Can’t you stop me thinking, doctor?” asked some of my patients in the prison in which I worked, in the hope of a prescription of pills that would make them feel fuzzy and incapable of coherent mentation. For those who prefer a less drastic or non-pharmacological solution to the discomforts wrought by the contemplation of the world and their part in it, there are pseudo-thoughts with comforting connotations of wisdom, generosity, goodness, kindness, benevolence, etc. They are the kind of people, I suppose, who might think that Kahil Gibran’s kitsch vapourings are profound.

They would no doubt like Nicolas Hulot’s 100 Principles for a New World, published on 7 May in Le Monde. Hulot, an ecological activist, television personality and journalist once specialising in motorcycle racing, was M. Macron’s Minister for the Ecological and Solidary Transition (by their job titles shall ye know them) until he resigned with maximal noise in August 2018, having held the post for 15 months.

I confess that I was shocked by the banality of the mind, or alternatively the cynicism, of the person who could have written and published a manifesto such as Hulot’s – to say nothing of the astonishing lack of judgment of a respectable newspaper in publishing it. The last time that I was shocked so much by a politician’s vacuity was when I heard another Nicolas, Sarkozy this time, give a speech in person. He was like a dried pea rattling about and shaken in a tin box. He jumped around the stage making a passionate verbal noise, but nothing he said had any discernible tether to anything concrete. Within seconds of his finishing, no one could have given any account of what he had said. Is mastery of this kind of meaningless verbalisation, eloquently empty and passionately delivered, the key to political success? And if so what does it say of us, the citizens of democracies?

But to return to Hulot and his Hundred Principles. They each started “The time has come to…” or “The time has come for…”, followed by a cliché, a truism, or a banal falsehood, all expressed with a self-satisfaction that would have made Mr Pecksniff seem like a self-doubter.

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