Latest news with #historian
Arab News
9 hours ago
- Business
- Arab News
What We Are Reading Today: The History of Money
Author: David McWilliams In this eye-opening global history, economist David McWilliams charts the relationship between humans and money — from clay tablets in Mesopotamia to cryptocurrency in Silicon Valley. McWilliams shows that money is central to every aspect of our civilization, and from the political to the artistic. According to this book, money defines the relationship between worker and employer, buyer and seller, merchant and producer. It also defines the bond between the governed and the governor, and the state and the citizen. In this book, McWilliams takes the readers across the world, from the birthplace of money in ancient Babylon to the beginning of trade along the Silk Road.
New York Times
a day ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Jean-Pierre Azéma, 87, Dies; Chronicled French Collaboration With Nazis
Jean-Pierre Azéma, a historian who became a leading chronicler of France's dark days of wartime compromise, helping lead a generation's shift in attitude about that period though he himself was the son of a notorious collaborator with the Nazis, died on July 14 in Paris. He was 87. His death, in a hospice, was announced by the university where he taught for more than 35 years, the Institut d'Études Politiques, popularly known as Sciences Po. With a series of dispassionate, carefully researched books beginning in the 1970s, Mr. Azéma became part of a group of younger historians who helped destroy the postwar myths that France had comforted itself with: that the collaborationist wartime Vichy regime had done what it could to resist the occupying Germans and to protect the French, and that its leader, Marshal Philippe Pétain, was essentially benevolent. Mr. Azéma was having none of it. 'A phony regime' is what he called Pétain's government in his best-known work, 'De Munich à la Libération, 1938-1944' (1979, and translated in 1984 as 'From Munich to the Liberation'). He condemned the government for its 'sententious moralism and anti-democratic élitism' and its 'defensive and inward-looking nationalism.' Vichy was 'basically authoritarian,' Mr. Azéma wrote, a careful judgment not then universally accepted. He became known for picking apart Vichy's various factions — from the believers in Pétain's cult to the opportunists, and from those who believed in the marshal's project of a 'National Revolution' to those who were pro-Nazi. In France, Mr. Azéma's book outsold even the groundbreaking work of his friend the Columbia historian Robert O. Paxton, 'Vichy France,' which Mr. Azéma's mother, Claude Bertrand, had translated into French six years before and which was the first to set off the revisionist tide. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
France 24
11-07-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Historian retraces 5,000 years of Indian history
11:06 From the show On Access Asia this week, we speak to historian Audrey Truschke, whose new book covers 5,000 years of history on the Subcontinent. She tells us how she remains committed to historical truth, saying: "I will not be swayed by modern politics, modern pressures, no matter how extreme they are." We also cover how Afghans have been left in limbo, with the latest deportation drive from Iran underway.
CTV News
30-06-2025
- General
- CTV News
Barrie museum showcasing rich history of Grey and Simcoe Foresters
A museum in the heart of downtown Barrie is preserving and showcasing the Grey and Simcoe Foresters rich history and is welcoming the public through their doors this summer season on June 30, 2025. (CTV NEWS / Luke Simard) The City of Barrie has a rich history when it comes to significant historical wars including the Grey and Simcoe Foresters. A museum in the heart of downtown is preserving and showcasing the Grey and Simcoe Foresters' history by welcoming the public through their doors this summer season. Located at 36 Mulcaster Drive, the building was built in 1888 as an armory in Barrie. Since 1990, the building has now served as a museum for the regiment. Founded in the 1860's, the regiment will celebrate its 159th anniversary in September. Over 200 men and women are currently members of the regiment and train weekly in Barrie and around the region. Museum A museum in the heart of downtown Barrie is preserving and showcasing the Grey and Simcoe Foresters rich history and is welcoming the public through their doors this summer season on June 30, 2025. (CTV NEWS / Luke Simard) Darcy Murray, volunteer and historian for the regiment, said the museum plays a key role in showcasing the importance of the organization. 'During the first war, the regiment raised four different battalions and sent them overseas to fight in the trenches,' said Murray. 'During the Second World War, we raised our regiment and sent them overseas in 1943 and a lot of them men, men from this area, were killed and wounded in fighting in World War one and World War two.' The Museum contains artifacts from as early as the Boer War to present. 'Seven members are going over to Latvia soon and they'll be in Latvia serving with the Korean military in Latvia,' said Murray. Murray added that museums like Grey and Simcoe Foresters are important because they are a reminder to the public of mistakes made in that era. 'So, you need to know what happened in the past so you don't make the same mistakes in the future,' said Murray. 'So the history of the regiment shows you what was done in past wars, like when we sent 25 members to Bosnia in the 1990s.' Museum A museum in the heart of downtown Barrie is preserving and showcasing the Grey and Simcoe Foresters rich history and is welcoming the public through their doors this summer season on June 30, 2025. (CTV NEWS / Luke Simard) The museum also shows Indigenous history within the regiment and the members that have served from Indigenous communities in the region. 'Over 35 Indigenous members joined the Grey and Simcoe Foresters and served overseas,' said Murray. 'In the Second World War the regiment raised 40-man Indigenous platoon and a lot of those members went over, saved and served in battle.' For a full list of hours and operations you can click here.
Malay Mail
30-06-2025
- General
- Malay Mail
Before Dracula, there was Blagojevic: Serbian village stakes claim to ‘world's first vampire' as locals revive 1725 ‘blood drinker' legend
KISILJEVO (Serbia), June 30 — At the back of an overgrown cemetery in a tiny Serbian village, a mysterious 300-year-old headstone marks the grave of the first recorded vampire. Pushing through thick scrub, local historian Nenad Mihajlovic pulls back branches to reveal the gravesite. According to locals, it is the long-lost burial site of Petar Blagojevic, known as the father of vampires. Backed by historical record, Mihajlovic and his fellow villagers hope Kisiljevo, about 100 kilometres east of the capital, Belgrade, can stake its claim as the cradle of vampires and suck in tourists. It was here, in the summer of 1725, well before Irish writer Bram Stoker made Transylvania Dracula's infamous home, that villagers exhumed Blagojevic's body, suspecting him of rising from the grave at night to kill locals. 'Petar Blagojevic was found completely intact,' recalled Mirko Bogicevic, a former village mayor whose family has lived there for 11 generations. 'When they drove a hawthorn stake through him, fresh red blood flowed from his mouth and ears,' said Bogicevic, Blagojevic's unofficial biographer. 'He was probably just an ordinary man who had the fortune — or misfortune — to become a vampire. All we know is that he came from Kisiljevo, and his name appears in records from around 1700,' he added, holding a copy of the Wienerisches Diarium, the imperial Viennese gazette dated July 21, 1725. The article marks the beginning of the Kisiljevo vampire. This photograph shows a copy of the 'Wienerisches Diarium', the imperial Viennese gazette dated from July 21, 1725, in Kisiljevo on June 23, 2025. — AFP pic Drinking blood Based on accounts from Austrian doctors and military officials, it was likely a mistranslation that gave rise to the myth, said Clemens Ruthner, head of the Centre for European Studies at Trinity College Dublin. 'There's an old Bulgarian word, Upior, meaning 'bad person'. I believe the villagers mumbled it, and the doctors misunderstood, writing down 'vampire' in their report,' Ruthner said. The Austrians, who were dispatched to the border region of the Habsburg Empire to investigate a series of unexplained deaths, then saw blood coming from the body. 'They assumed blood drinking. But that's wrong — it's not what the villagers said.' Instead, people described victims dying from suffocation, detailing symptoms that closely match with a high fever caused by a serious infection, according to Ruthner. He suggested an anthrax outbreak may explain the strange deaths. 'Vampirism, like witchcraft, is, in anthropological terms, a common model for explaining things people don't understand — especially collective events like epidemics.' Three centuries later, few have visited Kisiljevo, a sleepy village nestled between cornfields and a lake, but some locals are determined to change that. Lost through time and superstition, Blagojevic's grave was rediscovered using a suitably arcane method, hunting for 'energy nodes' with a dowsing rod. 'This tomb, whose gravestone has weathered over the centuries, showed signs of something very unusual,' Mihajlovic added, gesturing to the stone believed to mark the alleged burial plot. 'Right next to where we are standing, something truly strange happened — the dowsing rods literally plunged into the soil. The dowser had never seen anything like it.' But the alleged bloodsucker is no longer there — once dug up, his body was burned, and his ashes scattered in a nearby lake. Mirko Bogicevic, 68, local resident and village's chronicler, passes by graveyards in Kisiljevo on June 23, 2025. — AFP pic Reviving the legend Beyond the demonic undead, promoting other folklore has a 'huge potential' to lure tourists and investors to the region, Dajana Stojanovic, head of the local tourism office, said. 'Our region is rich in myths and legends — not just the story of Petar Blagojevic, but also Vlach magic and unique local customs,' she added, referring to the semi-nomadic traders and shepherds who once roamed the Balkans. 'Every village has its traditions.' However, for Mihajlovic, it is about presenting an accurate history of his town — one he firmly believes in. 'We have a fully documented account of an extremely unusual event — one officially identified as a case of vampirism,' the 68-year-old history professor said. 'I personally believe in the authenticity of that report.' He isn't alone. Bottles of rakija — Serbian brandy — infused with garlic and chilli are still kept in a few homes around the village. Just in case. — AFP
