Revealed: Last fearful days in India as Empire crumbled. (Observer)
'They are images that will change the way we think about the British Empire. Since the last days of the Raj, historians have wrangled over the imperial legacy in India, but the full extent of the suffering inflicted when Mountbatten, the last Viceroy in charge of the continent, pulled out in 1947, is about to be revealed as never before. '
'Following the enormous success of The Second World War in Colour, ITV is now to screen The British Empire in Colour, an astonishing collection of original colour film footage shot at the far-flung outposts of empire and now restored for its first public viewing. '
'The three-part television series, broadcast later this month, will feature unseen colour sequences from Africa, Australia, Canada and the West Indies. Yet it is frames shot at the time of the Partition of India that have stunned audiences at early screenings and already provoked argument among eminent historians - some of whom have drawn comparisons with ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Rwanda ... '
(Should also provide some interesting background to at least one of the current conflicts).
A Puritan on the warpath. (Observer)
'The Biblical zeal with which the US President is waging a moral crusade against Saddam Hussein owes much to the dissenting protestantism of America's original settlers.'
(It's an interesting point of view; it's particularly interesting to compare the argument that Bush's crusading zeal is rooted in Puritanism with the idea in some quarters that Islam is inherently an expansionist religion. The truth is perhaps that many different opposing ideologies - peaceful and not so peaceful - can be rooted in the same culture).
"America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
"Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight."
--James Ellroy, American Tabloid
Ensure a Free and Fair Election (Ban Paperless Voting Machines
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
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