Three Monkeys History Articles
Three Monkeys concerns itself with various different elements
of history, ranging from eye-witness accounts and interviews, through to interviews with leading Historians and articles discussing the academic discipline. The TMO history page does not limit itself to a specific period or location.
Industrialist Henry Ford famously remarked that 'history is mostly bunk', but according to Professor John Tosh, the correct use of history is an invaluable tool for policy-making decisions, citing examples as diverse as the Iraq war and Margaret Thatcher's Victorian family values crusade to back up his claim. Professor Tosh told TMO why History matters.
By Andrew Lawless
Two days before the invasion of Iraq, when Tony Blair addressed the house of commons defending his motion to authorise the war, history was very
much on his mind. He repeated the word five times throughout his speech, although his chief concern seemed to be the making of history rather than
any serious study of it. He found space for only one specific historical analogy in his speech, likening those days in March 2003 to the moments in
September 1938 when Adolf Hitler invaded the Sudetenland. The lessons of ...
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The publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960 by Penguin founder Allen Lane, in the face of prosecution for obscenity, was widely credited as ushering in the 'swinging sixties'. In an intimate and complex portrait, Lane's Grandson (and regular TMO contributor) Horatio Morpurgo examines the contradictions in the life of the man largely responsible for a cultural revolution thanks to his introduction of the paperback format.
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The massacre of 335 civilians in Rome's Fosse Ardeatine caves was one of the most brutal acts during the German occupation of Italy. What is surprising, though, is that in popular memory there is an ambiguity regarding who was to blame for the massacre. Alessandro Portelli, of Rome's La Sapienza University explains to Three Monkeys how the story of the massacre has been confused over decades, and the importance it has in modern day Italy.
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Dr. Catherine Lawless explores the position of a particular category of women who did not fit at all easily into either religious or social stereotypes, women who were the objects of amorous devotion on the part of prominent and influential citizens and on a more earthy level women who were mistresses, concubines and mothers of illegitimate children in Renaissance Florence.
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Fifteenth Century Florence was the centre of the artistic explosion we now term the renaissance. It was also home to the relatively new profession of banking, which, for families like the Medici, created the wealth which was used to patronise the arts. English novelist Tim Parks talks to Three Monkeys Online about the Medici, usury, and the uneasy relationship, then and now, between money, art, and religion.
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In November 2004 Horatio Morpurgo flew into Kiev, on his way to report on a Nature reserve for an ecological magazine. By chance he found himself in the midst of the Orange revolution. Morpurgo gives his eye-witness account of the Ukranian Orange revolution to Three Monkeys Online.
Is bombing civilians ever justified during wartime? Did the bombing of German and Japanese cities hasten the end of World War II? What constitutes a war crime? Just some of the questions that A.C. Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College London, addresses in his recent book Among the Dead Cities. Prof Grayling discusses the issues with Three Monkeys Online.
In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev, addressing a closed session of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party, did the unthinkable and denounced his predecessor Stalin. The report on the "cult of the individual", which inevitably and quickly leaked out across the Eastern Bloc, was shocking - people were reported to have fainted upon hearing it. Robert Looby takes a look at the report, and the Polish reaction to it at the time.
Science writer Charles C. Mann's latest book Ancient Americans could easily be subtitled 'everything you know about the Americas pre-Columbus is wrong!' It takes into account developments in fields such as archaeology, anthropology, geology and history to present a fascinating and challenging picture of both the land and societies that existed before Europe colonised the Americas. It's a picture that has profound implications for our 21st century society, not least of which is to call into question our understanding of how traditional societies interacted with the natural world.
Eoin O'Duffy, the founder of an Irish fascist party during the 1930s, as well as that of an Irish Brigade which would fight on Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War, is the subject of a new biography by Fearghal McGarry, lecturer in History at Queens University Belfast. In interview with Three Monkeys Online McGarry discusses one of the most controversial figures in recent Irish history.
From the Gilded Age through to the Great Depression, Colm McInerney continues his series of articles on American History. In this ...
Dr. Ulf Erlingsson in his new book Atlantis from a Geographer's perspective, has located Atlantis, firmly above sea level, ...
As children from America through to Italy celebrate Halloween, with the obligatory pumpkins and masks, the celtic and pagan origin...
In a three part essay, Colm McInerney looks at the development of the American system of Government. In this installment he examin...
From Plato to Joni Mitchell, by way of Thoreau and Malthus, Michael Keyes takes a look at the construct of Wilderness, past and pr...
History has tended to judge the Congo Free State, established by Leopold III of Belgium, as an exception to the rule in the coloni...
As a young officer in the Irish Army, in 1972, Tom Brace found himself a few feet away from world leaders, as they searched for a ...
Trinity College Dublin, has, in the past, been associated in the popular perception with Unionism and the Protestant Ascendency, a...
For 19th and 20th century nationalists, both in Norway and in Ireland, the relationship between language and...
The D-Day Companion, edited by Jane Penrose, has been published to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Tom ...
Italy's Serie A is one of the world's best loved footballing championships, watched by millions. In interview, Simon Martin...
Harry Clarke, Ireland's great Symbolist artist, lived and worked during a time when traditional roles assigned to Women where cha...
Following the Spanish conquest of Mexico, cochineal was one of the most highly prized exports from the new world, second only to G...
John Dickie's Cosa Nostra is one of the first serious attempts to examine the Sicilian mafia from an Historian's perspectiv...
Emotions are rarely the subject for Historians, many of whom feel more comfortable with causality and rational responses. Professo...
In 2000, in the small Tuscan town of Massa Marittima, a bizarre mural depicting a tree covered in phalluses was uncovered by resto...
St. Patrick's day is celebrated by the Irish worldwide, usually with parades and pints. It hasn't always been the case, and, in fa...
In the third part of his series on American History, Colm McInerney charts the period from the new deal through to Eisenhow...
Steve Roud, author of A Pocket Guide to Superstitions of the British Isles, has studied and collected superstitions for yea...
Over the top consumerism has increasingly become part of the Christmas tradition. Professor Steven Nissenbaum, author of the ba...
