In David Rundle’s new book he looks at the current state of the humanities, asking whether we can recapture the confidence and broad cultural ambition of the Renaissance’s studia humanitatis, which sought to define what it is to be human. When intellectual historians look back at the first decades of this century they will notice…
Leuven’s legacy: Century after razing of Belgian library, cultural destruction a wartime norm
A century after German forces burned down the Leuven University library, Marie Legrand still has visions of the horrid scene. Even the scent of smoke she smelled as a 3-year-old stings in her mind to this day. The First World War had started weeks earlier and Belgium had slowed Germany’s march on France much more…
Massive photo archive of pre-Holocaust Eastern European Jewish life made available to public
A vast U.S. archive of photographs of pre-Holocaust Eastern European Jewish life is being made available to the public and researchers. The International Center of Photography in New York and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday announced the joint creation of a digital database to facilitate access to photographer Roman…
Sopron, Hungary: the picnic that changed the world
Twenty-five years ago, a diplomatic picnic helped bring down communism in Eastern Europe. Who would have thought that in the end the Iron Curtain would be brought down not with a bang, but with basketfuls of sandwiches and hot dogs? And yet that is what happened. On August 19, 1989, at the instigation of the Austrian Euro…
Paris 1944: True stories behind liberation from the Nazis
On the morning of 19 August 1944, a 28-year-old Frenchman called Georges Loiseleur hurried down to the street from his flat on the Quai des Grands-Augustins. Paris was abuzz. A short distance away, he could hear chaotic sounds from the Ile de la Cite, where police had come out for the Resistance and taken control…
Is History Really Over?
“In 1989, as the Cold War entered the bottom of the ninth inning, political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a memorable essay entitled “The End of History?” And despite the question mark in the article’s title, the argument resolved itself in a straightforward answer: “Yes.” It was a nifty bit of Hegelian reasoning, filtered through the…
A secret encounter that shaped world history
It is perhaps one of the most important, yet least-known moments in Canadian history, an event that set out a future of peace when the world was enveloped in conflict and despair. In early August, 1941, just off the tiny town of Ship Harbour in Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay, two of the giants of the 20th…
Vast tomb unearthed in northern Greece
Archaeologists in Greece have discovered a vast tomb that they believe is connected with the reign of the warrior-king Alexander the Great, who conquered vast swathes of the ancient world between Greece and India. The tomb, dating to around 300 BC, may have held the body of one of Alexander’s generals or a member of his…
Inside Tutankhamun’s Tomb
Documents from Oxford University’s Griffith Institute which shed light on the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb have gone on display to the public, many for the first time in their history. The items, including paintings, journals, maps and photographs, are part of the Ashmolean Museum’s summer exhibition, Discovering Tutankhamun, which opens today (24 July). Alongside ancient…
In Pakistan, imposing tombs that few have seen
Although Pakistan has only been independent since 1947, the area of which Pakistan now constitutes has been home to many ancient civilization dating back thousands of years. Makli is an incredible Unesco Heritage site in Pakistan located along the Indus River, where its necropolis has been a pilgrimage site since the mid-14th century and a major…
History of Human Culture Captured in Five Minute Video?
The history of human culture was captured in a five-minute video created by Cultsci.net. Or was it? The video maps the movement of notable figures in history over the past two millennia. In so doing, it professes to have created a visual of the entire pattern of human culture. The video map was created by…
Soviet Ghosts: an Empire in decay – in pictures
The countries of the former Eastern bloc are full of abandoned monuments to the “glory” of the Soviet Union. Risking arrest and radiation, photographer Rebecca Litchfield took a road trip through the ruined hospitals, barracks, prisons and spy stations to produce a haunting ghost story in bricks and mortar. http://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2014/jul/10/soviet-ghosts-an-empire-in-decay-in-pictures
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