Matthew Parris on Christian Mission in Africa

Matthew Parris is an atheist, and so gives this insight to something that is meaningful and effective because people care. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it’s Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump [...]

Celebrate Christmas the Nazi Way!

Here is Hitler at a Christmas dinner. He didn’t seek to abolish Christmas but to transform it from a Christian holiday to a celebration of the family in a National Socialist context. The job was made easier since the German word for Christmas (Weihnacht) is non-religious in tone. Consequently, a 64-page pamphlet for Advent, released [...]

Celebrate Christmas the Victorian way!

“Of the ‘high days of the Calendar’ Christmas was always the one which held the chief place in England where it was celebrated in a manner so different from what was customary in other countries as to excite the astonishment of foreigners. As soon as the Christmas holidays had arrived work and care were universally [...]

Mussolini’s heir apparent

The life (and death) of Italo Balbo offers a powerful insight into the world of Italian Fascism. It’s the story of a radical young “mover and shaker” who joins in the Albanian uprising at age 14, supports Italy’s entry into World War One, and then becomes something of a celebrity war hero (decorated three times, [...]

Let’s hear it AGAINST Roosevelt

Critics of the New Deal Conservative opponents said Roosevelt had spent too much government money. The wealthy businessmen behind the American Liberty League argued that by increasing taxation and encouraging the development of the trade union movement, Roosevelt had betrayed his own class (Roosevelt was from a very wealthy family). Many ordinary people began writing [...]

Let’s hear it for Roosevelt!

Example of a Pro-Roosevelt (interventionist) New Deal Essay

Nineteenth Century Christian Mission: The ideological arm of Western Imperialism?

A bishop visits his flock: Sierra Leone c1880 During the first half of the nineteenth century, academic societies and private associations often sponsored exploring expeditions, usually by selling financial shares in the enterprise. Geographical societies naturally wished to advance knowledge and make discoveries. Several rival expeditions originating from Britain, for example, intended to explore the [...]

The significance of the Great Exhibition 1851

Our judgment of the Great Exhibition is clouded by the hagiography of contemporary accounts, the generational revolt of mid-twentieth century historians, and post-colonial distaste for things Victorian. The Great Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, to give it its full title, was just that: a huge and monumental enterprise, of importance in art, science [...]

Industrial revolution: From Capitalists to Communists

Although Western Europe had long had the basic trappings of capitalism (private property, wealth accumulation, contracts), the Industrial Revolution fueled the creation of a truly modern capitalist system. Widespread credit, business corporations, investments and large-scale stock markets all become common. Britain led the way in this transformation. By the 1780s, the British Industrial Revolution began [...]

Mussolini: Stategist or Opportunist?

To what extent was Mussolini’s rise to power due to his own skill and opportunism OR to the blunders made by his opponents?