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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Norman Davies on Europe, Isles and Forgotten Burgundy, Aragon and Hansa




Norman Davies writes history, big history. His three books are huge in pages and weight and in ambition. For years he was known as the unrivalled historian of Poland , his two volume history being regarded as a classic especially in Poland itself. There he might have remained, a highly regarded specialist, pretty unknown by anyone outside the professional historians' field. Then in 1996 came Europe - A History, a 1400 page heavyweight trailing reviews and admiration behind it, and hold on, opinions. This was history with attitude, history with views, red-blooded history, not the dry as dust monograph with more apologies than views in it.
And there was worse. Davies took an unashamedly polemical stance casting Europe's net geographically wide to include the East, arguing for the need to see Europe as living on its two lungs, East and West, some were aghast. How can you write about Europe from the stand point of the Poles?
Well not content with setting Europe ablaze intellectually Davies then came home to Britain, or the United Kingdom, or the British Isles, well none of the above, because the book was called The Isles. Another heavyweight with another polemical or mischievous glint. The history of the Isles from the point of view of all their inhabitants, the Welsh, the Scots, the Irish, oh and the English too. This was history as corrective to the Westminster Kings and Queens of England school of history and politics.
So Norman Davies is now that rare commodity, something that some of us thought we would never see again, a celebrity historian. Here you have four of his eye-opener books ( in my preferential order)




1. Europe: a history 
 (Norman Davies 1392 pages)


Here is a masterpiece of historical narrative that stretches

from the Ice Age to the Atomic Age, as it tells the story of Europe,



East and West. It shines light on fascinating minority communities, from heretics and lepers to Gypsies, Jews, and Muslims. It also takes an innovative approach, combining traditional narrative with unique features that help bring history alive: 299 time capsules scattered through the narrative capture telling aspects of an era. 12 -snapshots offer a panoramic look at all of Europe at a particular moment in history. Full coverage of Eastern Europe—100 maps and diagrams, 72 black-and-white plates.All told, Davies’'s Europe represents one of the most important and illuminating histories to be published in recent years.
YOUTUBE-fragments (1-2-3/3)




In 2. EUROPE EAST AND WEST

Davies argues for a comprehensive view that challenges Western stereotypes and no longer ignores the history and experience of Eastern Europe. He shows that the conventional exclusion of Central and Eastern Europe has led to serious shortcomings of our understanding of one of the most crucial episodes in European history, namely the Second World War. The essays confront prevalent distortions and prejudices; taken together, they also form a meditation on the art of history writing itself.

From the classical oritins of the idea of Europe to the division between East and West during the Cold War; from the Jewish and Islamic strands in European history to the expansion of Europe to other continents; from the misunderstood Allied victory in 1945 to Britain's place in Europe; from reflections on the use and abuse of history to personal recollections of learning languages - this companion volume to the best-selling EUROPE looks at European history from a variety of unusual and entertaing angles in an equally stimulating and accessible way








Davies has written 3. THE ISLES, a wondrous, landmark chronicle of the British Isles--already a bestseller in the U.K.--that challenges conventional Anglocentric assumptions throughout. Davies situates prehistoric Britain as part of a Celtic world stretching from Iberia to Poland to Asia Minor. Unlike most historians, who stress Britain's Anglo-Saxon heritage, Davies shows that the isles' fourfold division into England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales arose from a complex mixing of peoples in a constantly fluctuating patchwork of ethnic communities, statelets and kingdoms. Bursting with fresh insights on nearly every page, this magisterial narrative, scholarly yet down-to-earth and engrossing, reveals Davies at his iconoclastic best. He declares that the Viking legacy is much greater than traditional historians admit, and that the Battle of Hastings in 1066 was not a famous showdown between the English and French, but an intricate scramble for the final Viking spoils in England (valiant English King Harold II was leader of the Anglo-Danish party).



Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe


Europe's history is littered with kingdoms, duchies, empires and republics which have now disappeared but which were once fixtures on the map of their age - 'the Empire of Aragon' which once dominated the western Mediterranean; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, for a time the largest country in Europe; the successive kingdoms (and one duchy) of Burgundy, much of whose history is now half remembered – or half-forgotten – at best.

Historical memory is extraordinarily imperfect and we often forget that the past is different from the present in many unfamiliar ways. Thinking of the European past as the history of countries which exist today - France, Germany, Britain, Russia and so on - often obstructs our view of the past, and blunts our sensitivity to ever-changing political landscapes.


Professor Norman Davies’s latest book, Vanished Kingdoms, published in October 2011, offers a challengingly original perspective on the history of Europe, showing readers how to peer through the cracks of mainstream history writing and listen to the echoes of lost realms across the centuries. He examines the lives and afterlives of vanished kingdoms that no longer have advocates, subverting our established view of what seems familiar, and urging us to look and think afresh.
Norman Davies was for many years Professor of History at the School of Slavonic Studies, University of London, and has also taught at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, McGill, Cracow, Adelaide, Australian National and Hokkaido universities. He is the author of the best-selling Europe: a History (1996) and The Isles (2000). He is now Professor at the Jagiellonian University at Cracow and an Honorary Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford.


Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Abel, company i amic... sic transit gloria mundi

volent compartir un minut de lectura i records,

Hola, amics i amigues,
un record per l'Abel, les tardes per Manresa, una bona conversa,
bona planta de cert, bona gent per nosaltres, 
un xic enèrgic potser, un tímid galant  
una cervesa al menjador, una anecdota als llavis, un somriure evident,
una espurna als ulls, un serrell de cabells despentinats, una rialla per cloure.

Una abraçada amb caliu, un pas decidit, d'encaixada de mans amb força,
Abel Martínez, enamorat dels còmics, i apreciador d'un bon llibre.
quina passió per conèixer, força valor de comprendre
amic de les llengües, comunicava amb el cos generòs,
amb cap ganes de complaure, valorava el que tens,
cimbrejant la vida al compas de la música, fer-se valent al conviure.

I bon professor que fa pes en aquells que l'han volgut entendre.

Et diem adéu amb la boca petita, 
Abel Martínez Oliva,
i busquem la llum per viure amb menys foscor.


D'un ex-alumne recollim:

Abel fue un profesor sustituto en el primer trimestre en mi centro de enseñanzas. No le tenía una gran estima pero sabía que le ponía ganas en su trabajo. Me acuerdo que en su primera clase nos preguntó qué idiomas hablábamos y cuales eran nuestras metas para el futuro
Lo más triste es que no me acuerdo de cuales eran sus metas para el futuro (ojalá hubiese estado más atento ese día). Era una buenísima persona y no se merece lo que le ha pasado. Espero que la familia pueda encajar semejante golpe y que puedan superar esta gran pérdida.

FROM the news:
Abel Martínez Oliva llevaba apenas dos semanas en el IES Joan Fuster. Sustituía a otra profesora. Estaba en plena clase de sociales, explicando los Reyes Católicos ayudándose de un power point a los alumnos de Segundo C, cuando pasadas las nueve de la mañana se han oído gritos procedentes de la clase de Segundo B. Ha sido al salir al pasillo cuando el maestro ha sido apuñalado.

the attacker first shot at his Spanish teacher with the crossbow, after she told him to enter the classroom having arrived late. The woman is among the injured. The attacker is then reported to have stabbed the daughter of the Spanish teacher, who was a classmate of his, in the leg. After hearing shouts and screams, the substitute teacher entered the classroom, and was shot with the crossbow and fatally stabbed in the abdomen.The substitute teacher who was killed had been at the school for less than two weeks


Acababa de herir a otra profesora y a su hija, también alumna del centro.
"Simpático", "buen tío", "muy majo" y con parecido físico a "Iker Jiménez, el deCuarto Milenio", así describían esta mañana los alumnos del IES Jaume Fuster al profesor fallecido. Apenas le conocían porque llegó hace quince días al centro.
es va incorporar al Joan Fuster per substituir una setmana una professora de baixa per malaltia. L’últim dia de feina, ahir, va acabar de la forma més tràgica possible: mort per un alumne del centre. L’Abel estava donant classe d’Història quan va sentir un gran enrenou en una aula pròxima i al sortir al passadís per comprovar a què es devien els crits va ser apunyalat...

era un jove «amb moltes ganes». Vivia a Lleida, encara que sabia que a Barcelona era més fàcil exercir la seva professió. «A ell li era igual on, el que volia era estar en una aula amb els nens», va assenyalar el seu tutor de pràctiques.










Saturday, April 11, 2015

On the Sense of belonging- PRIDE-film- Why on earth would we find that weird?

The sense of community vs the sin of isolation
J. Donne quote:
  • every man is a piece of the continent,
  • a part of the main;
  • ... because I am involved in mankind. 



  • BIT1.    The miners' strike drama  Pride   has scooped the outstanding debut award at the Bafta Film Awards.
The film portrays an alliance between gay rights' campaigners and pit workers during the 1984 and is largely set in the Dulais Valley in south Wales.
The odds:
1) The men's sense of self-respect has been eroded anyway
during the strike by their increasing reliance on their womenfolk
2) the idea that they are now dependent on financial support from lesbians and gays is too much for many of them to stomach.

  • "They don't want to take our money because we're poofs,"
is how one of the gay characters starkly sums it up.
WRITER Stephen Beresford and producer David Livingstone received the award at the ceremony in London on Sunday night (09/02/2015).


Bit 2. The TV crew has appeared. 

They’re interviewing CLIFF (74 y-o).
CLIFF: The gays and the lesbians have been
      magnificent. There’s no other word for it -
TV WOMAN:
 
      You must have found it a bit weird?
       A load of gays and lesbians
       descending on you like that?
CLIFF: (Dry, dignified) 
       Why on earth would we find that weird?
The TV WOMAN shrivels. Still smiling. 






BIT-3. News.   
Striking coal miners in the UK in 1984 found an unlikely ally in lesbians and gays, who were grappling with their own challenges 1984. The year of Orwell’s big brother and the year homosexuality was decriminalised in New South Wales. It was the year that Culture Club and Frankie Goes to Hollywood filled the airwaves. 
On the other side of the world, 1984 was also the year of the strike. Margaret Thatcher was beating miner’s into submission for having the audacity to stand up for better working conditions.

BIT- 4. DAI's speech: 

If you’re one of the people who’s  put money into these buckets - 
if you’ve supported LGSM - thank you.
Because what you’ve given us is more than money. It’s friendship.
And when you’re in a fight as bitter and as important as this one,
against an enemy, so much bigger,  so much stronger than you - well.
To find out that you have a friend you never knew existed -
It’s the best thing in the world.


BIT 5. Togetherness.
feat-pride-4
Above: Dancing in Dulais 1984 ... The dance scene in Pride 

is based on this photograph. Blake is seen wearing check trouser, clapping
Bit 6. Two reviews
a) highly recommended:Its appeal lies not just in its humour but in its joyous celebration of: decency, tolerance and consensus at one of the most divisive times in recent British social history.B) In 1984. Soon, pit closures and AIDS/HIV would change both groups’ way of life. Acknowledging those looming transformations, the film still manages to end on an uplifting note. It’s a (mostly) true story that climaxes with a handshake that will make even the most stoic coalminer reach for a hankie. 

For a context on UK politics, Thatcher and 
 the life of miners over these 365 days...
read here: STILL the enemy within (2014)

CODA: Rewrite in your own words:
  • The film portrays an alliance between gay rights' campaigners and pit workers.
  • Striking coal miners in the UK in 1984 found an unlikely ally in lesbians and gays.
  • it brings to life two marginalised groups who formed an unholy alliance that empowered one another to stand tall in the most challenging times.

PS: Thirsty years ago... 
where was Laurent Stefanini? and you?

In September 1985, at the Labour Party Conference, a motion was tabled to enshrine Gay and Lesbian rights into the party’s official manifesto. Although the motion had been raised many times before, this time it was carried without objection.


Thursday, April 2, 2015

Gonzalez Faus -EL Natzaré i la prova del Vuit


Llegiem a Gonzalez Faus - pregunta, click aquí:




¿Qui era Iesú/Jesús/Isa/Jeshua/Jehoshua? del NOM.

Dels primers testimonis dues ràpidas pincellades:
1- "no buscà el seu propi interés";

2- "passà fent el bé i alliberant els oprimits"
No tingué estudis especials, va treballar en coses de cosntrucció.

provocatiu en el camp econòmic:
3- propietaris del “projecte de Déu” que anunciaba són sencillament i únicament els pobres 
(una sociedad aufegada per deutes, acabant en esclavitud, prostituir-se o bandolers).
4- solia frequentar públicament “gent de malviure”, desafiant els públics banquets ostentosos de classes altes.
5- Oferí amistat a prostitutas, de las que deia que estaven més prop de Déu que nosaltres.
Defengué les dones, no acceptant el repudi i deixant pas a accedir a la “Llei de Déu”.
Hypocrites6- Fou també un terapeuta innegable, pero provocatiu: preferia curar en dies “de precepte”,
 Per la seva visió dels homes amb poder (sobretot religiosos):
7- "fools, hypocrites, blind guides, whited sepulchers, murderers, a generation of snakes," Matthew, 23
8- “les gents es meravellaven de la llibertat-autoritat (Greek: exousia-Latin potestate) con que hablaba” (Mt 7:27, Lc 4:32)
(del Sermó de la muntanya tenim la darrera entrada aqui


Pero lo que sí pueden (y deberían) todos hoy, es paladear la humanidad de aquel Nazareno. Y sacar consecuencias.

Article de Gonzalez Faus

Resultado de imagen de jesus hypocrites