What really alarms me about President Bush's 'War on Terrorism' is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? How is 'Terrorism' going to surrender? It's well known, in philological circles...
Medieval learning was really advanced.
The university had a new Managing Director, whose greatest achievement had been to change his title from 'The Principal' to 'The Managing Director'.
Poetry was alive and dangerous.
Trajan became commander of the world's largest army. It was a tradition for any new emperor to kick-start his reign with a little military adventure – and Trajan especially wasn't going to be left out...
The Goths didn't destroy Rome, nor did they massacre the population. On the contrary, the Barbarians took particular care to provide safe-houses for civilians and not to harm public buildings.
Today we expect but one thing from our doctors: to make us better. The medieval doctor was trying to do a lot more than that. He was taking care of the soul as well as the body. Unlike modern doctors...
The Renaissance invented the Middle Ages in order to define itself; the Enlightenment perpetuated them in order to admire itself; and the Romantics revived them in order to escape from themselves. In...
Robbers of the world; having exhausted the land by their universal plunder, they rifle the deep. If their enemy is rich, they are rapacious; if he is poor, they lust for power; neither the east nor th...
And to whose unsurpassable mastery of ballistics and biomass energetics we owe our third sun that now shines above us with its own famous on-off switch....
WHO WERE THE BARBARIANS? Nobody ever called themselves 'barbarians'. It's not that sort of word. It's a word used about other people. In fact, it's a term of otherness. It had been used by the Ancient...
In the United States medical treatment is the third highest cause of death (iatrogenic death) after cancer and heart disease. So, despite our undoubted progress in understanding the chemistry and biol...
This is where, in a cheap novel, the couple, confronted by imminent oblivion, would suddenly make passionate love. It was a pity Nettie was now as old as she was.
But Decebalus was not one to be cowed easily, and still showed his spirit by taunting the Romans. As Trajan reached the Iron Gates, Decebalus sent him a warning inscribed rather surprisingly, accordin...
I don't think you need religion.
Short or long to Goblin City?The straight way's shortBut the long way's pretty...
Oddly enough, fear seems to have played a key role in the history of Rome, and despite the might and power of the Romans, there is something curiously desperate about their whole story. It's almost as...
Ah! The English language was a wonderful thing! You could always find the right word. He only wished he could speak the language.
World of elliptical allusions and allegory. And a lot of what they wrote was designed
Trevor wondered if anyone in the outside world could even guess at the horror of working in the Planning Department