Showing results by author "Charles River Editors" in All Categories

Much has been written about Western intervention during the breakup of Yugoslavia, and whether it made matters worse, prevented worse atrocities, or was simply ineffective. In early 1992, however, what was clear was that Europe was hopelessly divided over the best course of action to take towards Yugoslavia, and after several years of fighting, the Bosnian War was one of the most violent conflagrations in Europe since the end of World War II.

Countless civilizations have come and gone over the course of time, but interest in mythology is one of the great constants. People have approached myths from countless angles, some denigrating and self-righteous, others earnest and open-minded, but there is something mystical and universal in all myths that speaks to the reader across the years, regardless of what they know of historiography or "schools of thought".

For the ancient Greeks, there were few divine beings more important, and more generous, to humanity than the goddess Athena. She was also called "Pallas", "Pallas Athena", and (to the Romans) "Minerva". The daughter of Zeus, Athena was famous as a virgin warrior woman who was born from her father's skull bearing a helmet, shield, and spear. Yet she was far more than simply a warrior goddess.

Modern-day Lithuania is a small country bordering the Baltic Sea with a population of less than three million people, but despite its relative size, the nation has exerted an influential role on the history of the region. More recently, in the 20th century, Lithuania was caught between much larger powers in two world wars and then the Cold War. Along with neighbors Latvia and Estonia, Lithuania was one of the only states to truly break free of the Soviet Union when the latter dissolved in 1991.

The drumbeat of horses’ hooves and clatter of chariot wheels echo through the rolling green hills of what will be known much later as the Emerald Isle. The driver is a lone woman whose long hair and homespun cloak whip through the wind behind her. Headstrong, confident, and intelligent, she blazes a trail that will change her nation forevermore, yet not in her own name or for her own sake, but for that of the God who sent her. This is a woman who will love the poor, feed the hungry, house the homeless, teach the ignorant, and defy the odds doing it all. This is Brigid of Kildare.

In 1994, the American Film Institute gave a Lifetime Achievement Award to Jack Nicholson, who became one of the youngest actors to ever receive the award. Such tributes typically come as a capstone to a star's career, not when the actor is still in his 50s. In fact, Nicholson would go on to win the Oscar for Best Actor just a few years after receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award as a result of As Good As It Gets (1997), and he would earn another Academy Award nomination for About Schmidt (2002). Those two would give him 12 Academy Award nominations, more than any other man in history, and make him one of just two actors to be nominated in every decade between 1960 and 2010.

Over the last 2,000 years, ambitious men have dreamed of forging vast empires and attaining eternal glory in battle, but of all the conquerors who took steps toward such dreams, none were ever as successful as antiquity’s first great conqueror. Leaders of the 20th century hoped to rival Napoleon’s accomplishments, while Napoleon aimed to emulate the accomplishments of Julius Caesar. But Caesar himself found inspiration in Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE), the Macedonian king who managed to stretch an empire from Greece to the Himalayas in Asia by the age of 30.

It would be hard to overstate the influence that St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) has had on both the Catholic world and the West as a whole over the last 750 years. Even in secular circles, Aquinas is known as one of the most important medieval philosophers, and in many respects a harbinger of the Renaissance that began to flourish across Europe in the centuries that followed his life. His groundbreaking work, Summa Theologica, remains one of the most influential philosophical texts in history.

When the American Film Institute assembled a list of its top 100 actors, one of the top 10 was James Cagney, an actor whose acting and dancing talents spawned a career that spanned over five decades and once compelled Orson Welles to call him "maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera." Ultimately it was portraying tough guys and gangsters in the 1930s that turned Cagney into a massive star, the kinds of roles he was born to play after growing up rough in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century.

Magic - as opposed to religion, personal or otherwise - is a notoriously difficult concept to pin down. In ancient Greece, "magic was not distinct from religion, rather an unwelcome, improper expression of it." In other words, it's important not to think of it as a different definition of magic but to instead understand how the ancient Greeks believed certain aspects of magic functioned in their world.

The history of East Germany was closely intertwined with the development of its security services, specifically the Stasi. In an era of totalitarian countries dominated by repressive state agencies, the Stasi stood out for its size and the sheer breadth and depth of its surveillance. The Stasi: The History and Legacy of East Germany’s Secret Police Agency examines the history of one of the most notorious agencies in history. You will learn about the Stasi like never before.

The Cold War moved into one of its most dangerous phases after Brezhnev’s death as both sides deployed nuclear weapons within alarming proximity in Europe. A NATO exercise, “Operation Able Archer”, almost led to a Soviet miscalculation, and when the Soviets shot down a South Korean airliner in September 1983, claiming it had strayed into Soviet airspace, the Cold War became very tense indeed.

The 15th century was a pivotal era for Europe, during which it transitioned from a social and religious union under Christendom into a disparate collection of nation-states, and it was during this period that the Middle Ages came to an end and the Modern Period began. Less than a century earlier, in the mid-14th century, the Vatican called upon England and sought financial aid in the hopes of boosting papal defenses against French forces

"It's very simple. We want sharia. Sharia in economy, in politics, in judiciary, in our borders and our foreign relations." Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, the son of Omar Abdel-Rahman, Time. October 8, 2012.

Beginning in 2010, much of the Middle East, including Egypt, was swept up by a series of revolutions later referred to as the Arab Spring. The wave of riots and demonstrations — some violent, some not, but all impactful and sizeable — began in Tunisia.

Africa may have given rise to the first human beings, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later. From the Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria to the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Ancient Egyptians produced several wonders of the world, revolutionized architecture and construction, created some of the world’s first systems of mathematics and medicine, and established language and art that spread across the known world.

As much as it is a center of power, 10 Downing Street is also a study in contradictions. Though known today as the home of the prime minister, for most of its history it has housed other high-ranking government offices. Seen as a symbol of stability, it has often been physically the opposite; originally built in a swamp on a sandy foundation, it was shorn up again and again for decades. In fact its location and condition were often considered so bad that prior to 1900, only about half of the men offered the home chose to live there.

World War I, also known in its time as the "Great War" or the "War to End all Wars", was an unprecedented holocaust in terms of its sheer scale. Fought by men who hailed from all corners of the globe, it saw millions of soldiers do battle in brutal assaults of attrition which dragged on for months with little to no respite.

Meet the Luddites, a 19th-century brotherhood of rebels who vowed to annihilate every last one of the newfangled spinning machines that cost thousands their jobs. The Luddites' riots are indefensible, at least from the standpoint of violence, but they beg the question of whether the protests were nonsensical acts of rage carried out by thugs who sought to exploit imagined fears or desperate measures taken by those who felt neglected by the government. The Luddites chronicles the revolution and the negative reaction to it.

More than eight centuries after his death, Saladin's life and reign represent the pinnacle of the Arab world's glory. Saladin is widely considered one of the greatest generals in history and one of the most famous leaders of the Middle Ages, but he remains a paradox, both in personal and in historical terms. A military genius, he first served other generals and was overshadowed later in life by his greatest rival, Richard I of England. He was far more admired by his Christian enemies, who extolled his chivalry, than some of his Muslim rivals.

King Leopold II of Belgium emerges from the pages of history as a curious character. He was a member of a privileged clique of European monarchs, bereft of power but rich, indulgent, and indolent. Leopold certainly availed himself of all the pleasures of court life, but he was also shrewd, astonishingly competent, and avaricious to an almost unimaginable degree.