Category Archives: History
Nobel Peace Prize 2014 for Liu Xiaobo
My suggestion for the Nobel Peace Prize 2014: Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese writer and human rights activist. Yes, I know that Liu Xiaobo already won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 and it would be the first time that one person … Continue reading
“1493” by Charles C. Mann
Zur deutschsprachigen Rezension. 1493 refers to the year after Christopher Columbus “discovered” America and as the second part of the title suggests, the book describes how Europe’s discovery of the Americas revolutionized trade, ecology and life on earth. That sounds … Continue reading
ISIS recruiting more German fighters
When to Smoke (and when not to)
Around 1774, the former Chinese provincial governor Lu Yao provided a set of smoking rules in his book Yan Pu (Smoking Manual). In great detail he addressed the question of when to smoke (and when not to): Do smoke: after … Continue reading
Not only in James Bond
Some people still believe that James Bond books and films are fiction. How naive. I have just read Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre, the true story of a British operation during World War II, in which a dead body was … Continue reading
“… and the noble gesture of the German commander”
“If I hadn’t followed orders, I would have been shot myself” the culprits say, and their defense attorneys call it “acting under superior orders” when someone is indicted for crimes committed during World War II. A handy excuse, this alleged moral dilemma. Except that … Continue reading
Is this the most beautiful cemetery in the world?
Macedonia is full of cemeteries. Or maybe I just got this impression because every larger town has more than one resting place for its ancestors, always at least a Christian, a Muslim and a Jewish one. The latter hardly have any … Continue reading
We are so indipendent…
… that we can even ignore regular English spelling. Photographed in Vlora, where in 1912 the independence – or indipendence – of Albania from the Ottoman Empire was proclaimed. – To be fair though, throughout Albania I experienced a very … Continue reading
Going West
17 July 2014. In the Albanian port city of Vlora (in which Albanian is merely a geographical description because Vlora is such a typical Mediterranean tourism and port city that it might as well be in Italy or in Turkey) I … Continue reading
The Happy Hermit 