Utopia, you are standing in it!

1066, the Duke of Normandy, the famous William sailed across the British Channel. He challenged King Harold of England in the struggle for the English throne. After winning the battle of Hastings William was crowned king of England and the Norman Kingdom was established. Norman-French became the language of the English court. At the beginning French was spoken only by the Normans but soon through intermarriage, English men learnt French. Some 10,000 French words were taken into English language during the Middle English period and about 75% of them are still in use. In grammatical use the English suffixes and prefixes were freely added with the French words. e.g. ‘gentle’ borrowed in 1225 is found compounded with an English word ‘gentlewomen’ in 1230.

Illustration by Vikram Roy © 2012 (Medium: 0.6 Black Ball Pen and Water Colour in the Background)

The English and Norman commoners learnt some each-others language. Result, the…

Today’s blog post is a guest article by Dr Catherine Hanley. Dr Catherine Hanley is a historian specialising in warfare in the 12th and 13th centuries; she is currently writing a book entitled Louis: the Forgotten King of England which will be timed to coincide with the 800th anniversary of Louis’s invasion, in 2016. Under the name C.B. Hanley she is also the author of a series of medieval murder mysteries set during the invasion.Check out Catherine’s website: http://www.catherinehanley.co.uk/

Here’s a quick question for you while we warm up for this blogpost: think of a medieval English king.

Have you done it? Are you thinking of one king in particular? Then I can tell you that you will generally now fall into one of four groups …

First are those who have misunderstood what I meant by ‘medieval’ – if you’re in this group then you’ve probably picked Henry…

Last week we welcomed the news of the forthcoming marriage of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle. This is notable as the first royal engagement since changes were made to the rules governing royal marriages. Prior to 2013 and the passing of a new Royal Succession Act, descendants of George II (reigned 1727-1760) – with some exceptions – required the sovereign’s permission to marry under the rules of the Royal Marriages Act (1772). The new Act repealed the 1772 measure (it also ended the discrimination against Catholics). Now only the six people nearest in line to the throne require the monarch’s permission to marry. As fifth in line to the throne, this includes Prince Harry. Dr Robin Eagles considers the motivations behind the passage of the 1772 Act and some of the accompanying responses.

On 20 February 1772 a message from the king was conveyed to both Houses requesting Parliament to…

California fire officials say that 50,000 people have been ordered to evacuate and almost 12,000 homes are threatened by up to 5 massive wildfires that broke out in Los Angeles. Since California’s drought ended last year, its possible this is the result of increased vegetation resulting from rains that helped increase vegetation.

Think of how many years went by without a natural burn. This is the result, and (worst of all) without efforts to thin vegetation or even dead wood in forests, people living in areas like that ones in Los Angeles literally become tinderboxes.

Environmentalists were blamed for the state’s wine country wildfires and, if so, it is probable their opposition to controlled burns, vegetation or forest thinning efforts. Somewhere along the line climate change will, most likely, be blamed along with increased vegetation.

Below are live updates reported by ABC News

My only claim to fame in regards to colonial scholarship rests on a paper I wrote for an Honors course in Western Civilization as an undergraduate. The paper won a spot at an Honors consortium held at Stanford, so I was able to do even more research on the subject. The following post is a summation of my research in blog form.

The first task I have is to explain what colonialism is not. Colonialism is not a European invention or concept designed specifically to keep non-white people down. The myth of the evil white colonialist is one of the most pernicious myths espoused today, and for a couple of big reasons. The first reason is that colonialism has been around for a long time. Today, the Han practice colonialism through the fascist Chinese state. In the 19th century, the Ashanti practiced colonialism throughout their slave-trading empire. The Ottoman…

My only claim to fame in regards to colonial scholarship rests on a paper I wrote for an Honors course in Western Civilization as an undergraduate. The paper won a spot at an Honors consortium held at Stanford, so I was able to do even more research on the subject. The following post is a summation of my research in blog form.

The first task I have is to explain what colonialism is not. Colonialism is not a European invention or concept designed specifically to keep non-white people down. The myth of the evil white colonialist is one of the most pernicious myths espoused today, and for a couple of big reasons. The first reason is that colonialism has been around for a long time. Today, the Han practice colonialism through the fascist Chinese state. In the 19th century, the Ashanti practiced colonialism throughout their slave-trading empire. The Ottoman…

David Landes (1998) about the Wealth and Poverty of Nations

Introduction

Landes’ book is well-known in the world of economic history. It is much used at universities as textbook, and therefore it deserves a methodological account. Most economic historians are storytellers rather than model makers. Actually this is not a proper dual; it should not be one or the other. Stories can only be told systematically if the teller has a systematic analysis in mind. This analysis functions as a scope – be it a micro- or a macro-scope.

For a bit over 20 years, we’ve been berated with warnings that the climate is changing so rapidly, that ‘fixing’ it is a matter of the most pressing urgency.

Notwithstanding that, for nearly 20 years, global temperatures have stubbornly refused to budge, such that there are plenty of climate alarmists not game to bet on whether things are getting hotter or colder.

The only ‘solution’ proffered by the Chicken Littles to our self-inflicted weather-woes is, of course, carpeting the world in wind turbines and solar panels, with a few $trillion worth of mythical mega-batteries thrown in, which are all set to explode onto the power storage-stage and set the energy world on fire – quite literally (see our post here).

Then, the irony starts.

Australia’s most notorious wind power outfit, Infigen keeps telling its embattled shareholders that it can’t spin a dollar because of ‘poor wind conditions’…