Peace has to be fought for. My moral philosophy tutor at college said he felt more confident in a leader who said they were fighting a war in order to win the peace, than one who says they are fighting a war to win. In a way bot are saying the same thing but the…
Tag: Napoleon
Other Wars
The media war has always been with us. In the UK we all see at school the cartoon of Napoleon in George 3rd’s hand which has given rise to 200 years of Napoleon being small. Or of Hitler being a vegetarian despite his own cook saying he was a finick but never refused the meat…
How Do We Remember?
This is a question that is the corollary of ‘what do we choose to remember’. As nations we decided this long ago with the way in which we teach history to children; the overriding aim of which is the past was nationalistic and today seeks to arouse deep patriotism as a default position. How we…
Knowledge Of Others
When I was learning about Gandhi it was a critique of his method to say that he knew the British. If he had been seeking freedom from the Nazi mentality thousands would have died in like fashion to the massacre at Amritsar. Gandhi it was said, knew his enemy and in this knowledge lay the…
Too Much Of A Hurry
Some of the greatest changes in history have been the consequence of the fact that people do not live very long. Alexander would never have been in so much of a hurry if he had had a couple of hundred years to live. Napoleon wouldn’t have chaffed at the bit to conquer Europe if he…