&ldquoI foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly.”1 [Joseph Conrad] The later half of the nineteenth century saw a dramatic surge in colonial activity, as competing capitalist powers revisited mercantilism and sought to gain access to new […]
&ldquoThey took all the trees Put ’em in a tree museum And they charged the people A dollar and a half just to see ’em Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got Till it’s gone They paved paradise And put up a parking lot” [Joni Mitchell. &ldquoBig Yellow Taxi”] […]
Nations are not such new phenomena. The concept of Irish and Norwegian Nations dates back to medieval times. What is relatively new however, is an acknowledgement on the part of the general population of their membership of the Nation. Humans are social animals and have since earliest times tended to define themselves as X, son […]
Historians take from the past only what suits their purposes. Of the last 2500 years of historiography the above statement probably holds true for most of the period and for most of the historians. It can be argued that it is the historian’s job to take from the past what suits their purpose. The Historian […]
