![]() ![]() The letters that span these nearly forty years form the most significant correspondence-and reveal one of the most intriguing and inspiring partnerships-in American history.Īs a pivotal player in the American Revolution and the early republic, John had a front-row seat at critical moments in the creation of the United States, from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to negotiating peace with Great Britain to serving as the first vice president and second president under the U.S. In 1801, Abigail wrote to wish her husband John a safe journey as he headed home to Quincy after serving as president of the nation he helped create. ![]() In 1762, John Adams penned a flirtatious note to “Miss Adorable,” the 17-year-old Abigail Smith. “A wonderfully vivid account of the momentous era they lived through, underscoring the chaotic, often improvisatory circumstances that attended the birth of the fledgling nation and the hardships of daily life.” ![]()
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![]() Huxley, argued the other side of the coin. While many found it convenient to manipulate evolutionary theories in order to justify aggressive conduct at home and abroad, others, including Darwin's most authoritative interpreter, Thomas H. While majorities clung to the death penalty or the right to mete out corporal punishment, an increasingly vocal minority attacked these time-honored forms of aggression and denounced them as pathological. What makes Peter Gay's Victorian bourgeois so fascinating is that they debated everything - quite aggressively. But they also sought civilized rationales for their conduct, whether in the hunt for profits from new commercial ventures or for power in the political arena or for dominance over new movements that were bringing women out from domesticity.But that is only part of the story. ![]() ![]() The Victorians, like members of other cultures, gave themselves permission to ridicule, bully, patronize, and exploit individuals and classes, races and nations they deemed to be inferior. For nearly a hundred years, aggression had lurked beneath the surface of bourgeois culture, emerging occasionally to split the social order into insiders and outsiders. ![]() "War," exclaimed Thomas Mann as the European powder keg exploded in 1914, "is purification, liberation, and an enormous hope." His was not the only voice edged with eagerness for battle. ![]() ![]() ![]() Please make a reservation when booking your tickets. The restaurant will be open from 12 noon so that you can have lunch before the Book Club and afternoon tea will be served afterwards. There’s no joining fee and no need to read the books in advance. She describes herself as a biographer and historian but the most important thing for her is to be a story teller. Our Book Club events are a great opportunity to indulge your love of books. Her book Jambusters, the story of the WI in wartime, has inspired ITV's brand new 2015 drama series HOME FIRES, featuring Samantha Bond, Francesca Annis and many others. Julie describes herself as a biographer and historian but the most important thing for her is to be a story teller.Ĭlick here to read more about the TV series that was inspired by Jambusters Julie says: 'I’m really looking forward to seeing the characters Simon Block and the production team have created and watching the stories unfold.’ Jambusters is the compelling story of how the Women’s Institute pulled rural Britain through the war with pots of jam and a spirit of make-do-and-mend. Jambusters has inspired a major new ITV Drama series, Home Fires. Julie’s beautifully illustrated talk will bring the details of this extraordinary contribution to life. Making jam, making do and mending, gathering rosehips, keeping pigs and rabbits, housing evacuees, setting up canteens for the troops, knitting, singing and campaigning for a better Britain after the war: all these activities played a crucial role in war time. Jambusters tells the story of the minute and idiosyncratic details of everyday life during the Second World War. ![]() ![]() The Second World War was the WI’s finest hour. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() You can enjoy a grander sight, By climbing to a greater height. The sun beyond the mountains glows The Yellow River seawards flows. Yù qióng qiānlǐ mù, gèng shàng yī céng lóu On the Guanque (Stork) Tower - By Wang Zhihuan (688-742) Trying to capture the river’s domineering and soul stirring power, Li Bai wrote, “Do you not see the Yellow River come from the sky, rushing into the sea and ne’er come back?” Wang Zhihuan wrote “Where a yellow river climbs to the white clouds, near the one city-wall among ten-thousand foot Mountains.” “The sun beyond the mountains glows The Yellow River seawards flows.” He also wrote another poem about the loftiness and majesty of the Yellow River.ġ. The Yellow River has been a key image in Chinese poetry throughout history. They endured together the thorns and vicissitudes of life. The Chinese nation moves forward with the river through endless disputes and shared experiences. The river, and its connection with the people, has been well documented in literature, and poems and songs have expressed strong feelings about the Yellow River, encompassing every emotion from endless love to hate. ![]() It is the mother river that has been nourishing not only the people living in the north, but all of Chinese civilization for thousands of years. The galloping Yellow River runs more than 5,464 kilometers and crosses nine provinces in the country. ![]() ![]() ![]() The Roman Catholic Church’s first Latin American pope and the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis has made the plight of migrants and refugees a cornerstone of his papacy. READ MORE: Trump says there’s a ‘crisis’ at the border. ![]() Francis responded: “It is the fear that makes us crazy.” VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis said Wednesday that fear of migration is “making us crazy” as he began a trip to Central America amid a standoff over President Donald Trump’s promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and a new caravan of migrants heading north.įrancis was asked by reporters about the proposed border wall Wednesday on the way to Panama, where he is looking to leave the sex abuse scandals buffeting his papacy behind. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This is a disaster that has been happening for a long time. It turns out Big Oil already plans to sell more than five times the amount of fossil fuels that would keep temperatures below the conservative two degrees estimated to be the limit of what our planet can afford. The tears of delegates from the Philippines at international conferences on the subject go unheeded year after year, mega-storm after mega-storm. The seas are rising and there is less going back than there ever was. ![]() In the quarter-century since then, what has been done to solve this problem has been, in short, sweet fuck all. I’ve known that since I saw it on the news aged six and cried the night away until my father promised me membership to Greenpeace. “My father said there were two things in the world that would never change,” says Dafu, an aboriginal boy doomed never to be a hunter, “the mountains and the sea.” ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It’s clear that the author has an impressive imagination, once I began understanding the world she had created – my favorite was the Xian claw which was made from the nails of Nymphs. To be honest, I scrolled past this at first but then the concept of a world where magic renders a person emotionless was too unique a read to pass up. With bold twists, a riveting world of magic-powered technology, and a slow-sizzle romance, find out why readers are calling Such a Secret Place “totally original!”įirstly, the new cover for this book is strikingly gorgeous! And the concept for the fantasy world was the sole reason I wanted to read this book. They are the key to saving her people and rescuing her brother and others who've been taken by the Arcaians.With the Arcaian army threatening her every move, and Talon attempting to take the tears from her, Ambry must keep the tears safe at all costs. When Ambry stumbles across a vial of these enchanted tears, she finds herself the target of not only the tyrannical Arcaian army, who is stealing her people’s magic left and right, but of handsome, battle-scarred Talon Haraway, who seeks the tears for his own personal vengeance.Īmbry soon realizes the reason for their interference: these tears are the most powerful ever shed. In an emotionless world, tears are a precious commodity, valued for their magic and sold on the black market. ![]() ![]() Drawing from documents-scattered, unread and unresearched until now-and with unprecedented access to Menon’s papers and his taped off-the-record and explosively frank interviews-this remarkable biography of VP Menon not only covers the life and times of a man unjustly consigned to the footnotes of history but also changes our perception of how India, as we know it, came into being. She takes us through the highs and lows of his career, from his determination to give women the right to vote to his strategy, at once ruthless and subtle, to get the princely states to accede to India to his decision to join forces with the Swatantra Party to his final relegation to relative obscurity.Įqually, the book candidly explores the man behind the public figure- his unconventional personal life and his private conflicts, which made him channel his energy into public service. She takes us through the highs and lows of his career, from. In this definitive biography, Menon’s great-granddaughter, Narayani Basu, rectifies this travesty. In this definitive biography, Menons great-granddaughter, Narayani Basu, rectifies this travesty. Yet startlingly little is known about this bureaucrat, patriot and visionary. Menon was unarguably the architect of the modern Indian state. Menon met his stringent deadline, presenting the Menon Plan, which would change the map of the world forever. ![]() ![]() ![]() With his initial plans for an independent India in tatters, the desperate viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, turned to his seniormost Indian civil servant, Vappala Pangunni Menon-or VP-giving him a single night to devise an alternative, coherent and workable plan for independence. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Describing the circumstances of his fatwa, Rushdie appeals to the second audience which an overarching framework of how speech promotes a richer private and public life. One way in which Rushdie hooks his second, presumably older, audience is by explaining the importance of speech and storytelling in a profound philosophical context. Rushdie’s references to King Lear, Plato, and The Beatles demonstrate this dichotomy, resulting in a work which aims to please a child’s sense of wild creativity, yet also attracting more experienced readers familiar to complicated topics. Although the tale resonates with younger audiences and portrays a sense of magical realism, the allegory also makes several allusions to works only familiar to older audiences. In an effort to reconnect and entertain his son, Rushdie wrote an entertaining story for children: Haroun and the Sea of Stories. As a result, the English government put Rushdie in hiding and he was forced to be separated from his young son, Zafar. After he published The Satanic Verses, a novel about Pagan Meccan goddesses which insulted many Muslims, former Iranian Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the death of Rushdie. This narrative was a consequence of Rushdie’s many years in hiding. Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories tells a fictional tale of a young protagonist named Haroun who travels to the Sea of Stories to help his father gain back his skill of storytelling. Haroun and the Sea of Stories: An Allegory for all Readers ![]() ![]() ![]() Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Truman Capote was profligately articulate Brad Pitt’s baseball executive communicated clearly in words, stats and caroming body English. The difference is in Foxcatcher‘s strange, bold muteness. Soon they will explode.ĭirector Bennett Miller’s third feature blends the themes of his previous films: the complementary psyches of killer and journalist in Capote and sports as a nexus of genius and roughhouse in Moneyball. amateur wrestling history to have won both Olympic and world championships, sign up with Team Foxcatcher, run by John Éleuthère du Pont (Steve Carell), heir to the gunpowder and chemicals fortune. These atavistic impulses start simmering when Mark (Channing Tatum) and Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo), the only brothers in U.S. It follows that Foxcatcher is an investigation of men less comfortable in speaking than in expressing themselves through physical activity that can turn violent. Wrestling is the most elemental of sports: one man grappling another in intimate combat. ![]() |