For those of you who are interested in innovation:
History News Network | What We Can Learn from Innovators.
Month: February 2015
Saving Alan Turing from His Friends by Christian Caryl | The New York Review of Books
Should we expect accuracy from movies based on real historical events? I am conflicted on this question. On the one hand, I love great historical fiction (on screen and off) and I expect a great story even if the real events were not as spicy. On the other hand I know that it is through movies that most Americans get their history. But where I definitely draw the line is when dramatic license turns into irresponsible distortion. In this category I put movies like JFK and docudramas like The Sons of Liberty. On The Imitation Game I’m torn.
Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing
Should the US Constitution be sacred? – Daniel Lazare – Aeon
I have a lot of respect for the Constitution, but I think Daniel Lazare makes a great case for letting go of our Constitution worship. Lazare argues that “[n]othing could be sillier than the notion of strolling into the 21st century with a pre-modern plan of government. It’s like sending an 18th century man-of-war into battle against a guided-missile destroyer. The US political system’s age, in other words, is showing.” Read his entire argument here:
Should the US Constitution be sacred? – Daniel Lazare – Aeon.
Iraqi Libraries Ransacked by Islamic State Group in Mosul – ABC News
“When Islamic State group militants invaded the Central Library of Mosul earlier this month, they were on a mission to destroy a familiar enemy: other people’s ideas.” These people are truly barbarians! The beheadings, the burning of the Jordanian pilot, the killing of anyone who disagrees with them, the treatment of women, the destruction of ancient sites, and now the burning of books. Is there any shred of humanity left in these radicals?
Iraqi Libraries Ransacked by Islamic State Group in Mosul – ABC News.
Voltaire’s 250-year-old book on tolerance climbs French best-seller lists after terror attacks | Star Tribune
I am happy to see a renewed interest in Voltaire’s Treatise on Toleration. Although the worst of religious violence in Europe had waned by the time of Voltaire was born, he witnessed plenty of religious oppression and discrimination. We need to relearn the lessons that Enlightenment thinkers learned from the religious violence that plagued Europe in the aftermath of the Reformation and Voltaire’s book is a great place to start. Unfortunately, those who most need to learn these lessons are probably not the ones reading Voltaire.
Voltaire: “It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God?”
Review: The ‘Sons of Liberty’ Confirms that the History Channel No Longer Cares About History
This past weekend I finished watching the History Channel’s Sons of Liberty. While watching it I had the same feeling I had while watching The Patriot with Mel Gibson: queasy. The docudrama was not billed as a documentary so I expected some artistic license, but it turned out to be more drama than “docu.” I suppose it was entertaining in a B movie sort of way! The story, for the most part, was an idealized patriotic version without the profound and revolutionary thought behind it. A young and handsome (unlike the real one) Samuel Adams (played by Ben Barnes) was the protagonist, who almost singlehandedly drug his fellow revolutionaries to independence. In reality Samuel did play a major role in driving the Revolution, but he was not the only major player. And the beer-drinking man of action portrayed in the series leaves out Samuel’s major contribution as a polemical writer. Continue reading
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