Category Archives: History

The Foundation of Rome: The True Story

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Book Review: P G Wodehouse ~ The Inimitable Jeeves (1923)

It’s the centenary of the first Jeeves novel. Wodehouse created two of the most enduring comedic characters in literature, Jeeves and Bertie Wooster. The novel is a series of linked short stories. They are coherent only in the sense that … Continue reading

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Billie Holiday: a genius that got lucky

“One day, we were so hungry we could barely breathe,” she told Downbeat magazine in 1939. “I started out the door. It was cold as all hell and I walked from 145th to 133rd down Seventh Avenue, going in every … Continue reading

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The birth of modern British politics, 1832-3

The birth of modern British politics began in 1832 when the Whig government intervened in property rights. Firstly, ownership of rotten boroughs, which elected MPs, and secondly, slavery. Ownership of constituencies and slaves were felt to be against the public … Continue reading

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How the German denazification policy worked

After the war. Karl Höcker1 was arrested and spent eighteen months in a prisoner of war camp before being released. He returned to his old job with the same bank he’d been employed by before the war. In 1952 he … Continue reading

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Book Review: Menachem Kaiser ~ Plunder: A memoir of family property and stolen Nazi treasure (2021)

This quirky book instantly attracted me. The story is straight-forwardly about property in Poland. Jewish Holocaust survivors made it to the USA. Two generations later a grandson tried to prove ownership rights over a house plundered by Nazis. Kaiser’s book … Continue reading

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That’s My Girl!

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Britain’s Fantasy Economics 1530-2016: a short history

British governments from Henry VIII to David Cameron funded unaffordable aspirations by using other people’s money. This tactic is increasingly difficult to achieve as time passes. British politicians, nonetheless, are addicted to sources of revenue which are unconventional. They believe … Continue reading

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Let’s move on and not dwell on the past

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The Suffragettes knew how to protest

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