Category Archives: History
Richard III
Archeologists have found the bones of King Richard III. Dr Appleby said: “The analysis of the skeleton proved that it was an adult male but was an unusually slender, almost feminine, build for a man. “Taken as a whole the … Continue reading
Einstein’s Brain
Lost photos of Einstein’s brain have been found: After Einstein died in 1955, his brain was removed and photographed from several angles. Unfortunately, many of the photos of the brain were considered lost for more than 55 years. However, 14 … Continue reading
Martin Luther On Death
“When a person dies, we should view the process of dying in no other way than as a seed being planted in the ground. If the seed could see and feel what was happening, it would fear that it was … Continue reading
1491
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann. Finishing a book recently on American history prompted me to wonder about the Americas before the United States. This is the first book I’ve read on pre-Columbian life … Continue reading
America, Empire of Liberty
America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States. By David Reynolds. David Reynolds is an English historian who teaches at Cambridge University. He has visited the United States many times and studied its people, history and institutions. … Continue reading
Jesus Wars
Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1500 Years, by Philip Jenkins (HarperCollins, 2010). Philip Jenkins opens a window on the early church and its controversies. He focuses on … Continue reading
Paul Revere’s Ride
Paul Revere’s Ride, by David Hackett Fischer (Oxford, 1995). David Hackett Fischer won a Pulitzer Prize for his account of Washington crossing the Delaware River. This book, written ten years earlier, explores another event in American folklore, Paul Revere’s ride … Continue reading
Churchill and Aristotle
Churchill and Aristotle: Some time in the 1920s, the Conservative statesman F. E. Smith — Lord Birkenhead — gave a copy of the “Nicomachean Ethics” to his close friend Winston Churchill. He did so saying there were those who thought … Continue reading
Art Is Simple, Life Is Complicated
Historian James M. Lundberg criticizes The Civil War documentary by Ken Burns: For all its appeal, however, The Civil War is a deeply misleading and reductive film that often loses historical reality in the mists of Burns’ sentimental vision and … Continue reading
‘I saw a light in my chamber’
When he was 27-years old, the Quaker John Woolman had a vision of light: Being in good health, and abroad with Friends visiting families, I lodged in a Friend’s house in Burlington. Going to bed, about the time usual with … Continue reading
Two Quaker Classics
I have finished reading two Quaker classics. The first, Quaker Strongholds, was written by Caroline Stephen in 1890. She grew up in the Anglican church, but as an adult she could no longer believe its teachings or partake of its … Continue reading
‘live out the message of reconciliation’
Chris Seiple says the best response to Osama bin Laden’s death is a renewed quest for reconciliation: It is not a time for celebration.The God of history is quite clear:”As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take … Continue reading
Spiritual Royalty
On Friday my wife turned on the TV in our room at 6 a.m. to see the royal wedding while we were staying with a relative in Newport News, Virginia. I asked her to hand me my glasses and settled … Continue reading
Caroline Stephen On Mystics
Mystics are naturally independent, not only of ecclesiastical authority, but of each other. This is necessarily implied in the very idea of first-hand reception of light. While it must always constitute a strong bond of sympathy between those who recognize … Continue reading
Gregory Palamas
He who does not see understands that he is himself incapable of vision because he is not perfectly conformed to the Spirit by a total purification, and not because of any limitation in the Object of vision. But when the … Continue reading
In Memory of Our Fallen Soldiers
This picture is from the base of the US Civil War Memorial in Monument Park. I counted 85 names engraved in bronze. That terrible war began 150 years ago today. Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in … Continue reading
‘God does indeed communicate’
The one corner-stone of belief upon which the Society of Friends is built is the conviction that God does indeed communicate with each one of the spirits he has made, in a direct and living inbreathing of some measure of … Continue reading
Quaker Ecstasy
Quakers, or the Religious Society of Friends, trace their roots to a time of spiritual ferment in 17th century England. George Fox called people to turn aside from the established Anglican church, which he thought corrupt, and turn inward to … Continue reading
‘the verdict of the machines’
Warren Christopher has died. I remember him as a former Secretary of State, but I didn’t remember him as the chief negotiator for the release of American hostages in Iran in 1981, or for being the chief lawyer for Al … Continue reading
Communism: A History
Communism: A History, by Richard Pipes (Modern Library 2003). Harvard scholar Richard Pipes looks at communism from its origins with 19th century European intellectuals through the 20th century horrors of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. These ‘experiments in utopia’ … Continue reading
