Comments for The Toynbee convector

Comment on The Yellow Peril by davidderrick

davidderrick — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:23:33 +0000

Why the Germans should have had a particular fear of China is not obvious. She had not even acquired her Kiaochow lease in 1895. Was it some ancestral memory of the Huns?

Comment on Angel Island by The Yellow Peril « The Toynbee convector

The Yellow Peril « The Toynbee convector — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:58:15 +0000

[...] Angel Island [...]

Comment on Historical sentiment by davidderrick

davidderrick — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:23:04 +0000

No, but I will add it to the list. I got Allawi’s book on your recommendation, but have yet to read it. By the way, although I like your blog’s new look (as much as I dislike mine, especially when seen on a pc), I personally find the “click to read more” feature annoying. It’s like a series of roadblocks for the skimmer (which is, sadly, what most people are, even though you get and deserve a decent share of actual readers).

Comment on Is China expansionist? by davidderrick

davidderrick — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:16:02 +0000

I’m not sure I’d agree that Toynbee founded modern history. But a fine name anyway.

Comment on Historical sentiment by qunfuz

qunfuz — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:11:34 +0000

I have no nostalgia for the Caliphate, although a modern alliance of Islamic powers may be necessary – if very far away. See http://qunfuz.com/2009/08/27/the-crisis-of-islamic-civilisation/ Have you read Shlomo Sand’s book The Invention of the Jewish People? A controversial bestseller in Israel, it undercuts the blood and soil aspects of Zionism and questions the notion of ‘exodus’

Comment on Is China expansionist? by Mark Toynbee

Mark Toynbee — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:44:16 +0000

Well, Toynbee is such a rare name we must be, but it’s so far back in time we’ve never found the link between the two legs of the family. I get a vicarious celebrity from Polly Toynbee being in the news regularly, and of course I’m proud to have the same name as the man who founded modern history.

Comment on Is China expansionist? by davidderrick

davidderrick — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:28:00 +0000

Are you a relation?

Comment on Is China expansionist? by Mark Toynbee

Mark Toynbee — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:12:47 +0000

Nice to find a site dedicated to one of my illustrious forbears.

I was actually directed here because I was hunting up something on Indian civilisation, not googling my own name, honest…

Comment on Historical sentiment by davidderrick

davidderrick — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:04:20 +0000

Thanks. There’s a lot more from the old boy on this, including public controversies with Abba Eban and others. I’ll be getting to all of it. I suppose nostalgia for the Caliphate also counts as historical sentiment. But it may not mean invading or colonising.

Comment on Historical sentiment by qunfuz

qunfuz — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:58:53 +0000

just found this:

“Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that has committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims.”
–Famed British Historian Professor Arnold Toynbee

Comment on Anglo-Saxon attitudes by davidderrick

davidderrick — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:04:23 +0000

“The last infirmity of noble minds” was actually fame, not patriotism, in Milton’s Lycidas. “The last refuge of a scoundrel” is Samuel Johnson, quoted by Boswell.

Comment on The War Game by davidderrick

davidderrick — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:25:31 +0000

I suppose this is the best war film ever made, along with The Battle of Algiers.

Comment on The War Game by davidderrick

davidderrick — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:30:01 +0000

The English are shown as singularly charmless (and ugly) in the early sequences. The list of food rations in the third clip reminds one of the old British diet: “Two ounces of butter and half a pound of margarine, two ounces of tea, a quarter pound of sugar, two eggs, half a pint of milk when available, a quarter pound of meat, two loaves of bread, a pound of potatoes when available and two ounces of bacon.” I can almost smell it.

The film doesn’t so much mock officialdom in the ’60s style as seek to show that all official contingency plans are futile in the face of a nuclear attack.

Comment on Home by davidderrick

davidderrick — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:48:48 +0000

The more I see that image at the top the more I detest it.

Comment on Home by davidderrick

davidderrick — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:02:46 +0000

Other eco movies of 2009: Robery Murray’s The End of the Line Franny Armstrong’s The Age of Stupid Disney’s Earth Laura Gabbert’s and Justin Schein’s No Impact Man Robert Stone’s Earth Days Bill and Laurie Benenson’s and Gene Rosow’s Dirt! The Movie John Maringouin’s Big River Man