Tag Archives: History
Quotes of the Week (VII)
… ok, “week” as in “last 12 weeks”… and as you can see a rather short and subjective list… Neil MacFarlane We may be living post-historically. Russia is not. Russia Today Opposition candidates will get the right to lose elections. Mark Danner If Everybody Knew, Who’s To Blame? Timothy Garton Ash Europe is nice, boring [...]
Posted in European Debate Also tagged Europe, HSP, ideology, quotes, quotes of the week, Russia, Switzerland Leave a comment
"Walled In!" Germany's inner border
Pretty cool animation. Nice example how to make history more interesting and how computer animation can be used for educational purposes. Find more details about the project on DW World: For 28 years, a nearly insurmountable barrier kept people from fleeing East Germany. But then, the dramatic night of November 9, 1989, saw the fall [...]
Posted in History Also tagged Berlin Wall, Cold War, communism, Germany, online video, wall 2 Comments
Kosmolinks #13
EU Common Agricultural Policy proposals 2008 – Wikileaks “Leak of latest European Commission proposals for reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, known as the ‘health check’. These proposals will form the basis of an internal Commission discussion on 14 and 15 May 2008. The agreed proposals are due out later in the month.” - Is [...]
Return to Europe – A journey of discovery
Interesting TV documentary project about the Balkans. Unfortunately not online and only broadcasted by 3sat and ORF (both in German). More details here and here: This ten-part documentary series is one of the most ambitious TV projects on South Eastern Europe produced in recent years. It gives people who have contributed to the region’s progress [...]
Posted in European Debate, culture Also tagged Balkans, culture, documentary, EU Enlargement, Europe, South Eastern Europe, TV 1 Comment
Some random thoughts on Kosovo
I actually did not want to write something about Kosovo…but well, here we go again. First a few good pieces from around the web and then a few random thoughts on Kosovo. A good commentary on Kosovo can be found on stanley’s blog that writes “Recognition of Kosovo’s independence is an unfortunate solution, but there [...]
Posted in European Foreign Policy, International Politics Also tagged diplomacy, EU, foreign policy, independence, Kosovo, politics 5 Comments
Rewriting history
What is happening at the moment? History (or better the interpretation of history) is more and more used to justify political actions. Nothing really new, but somehow two recent statements were not only shocking but also worrying: First, the Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski used weird historic justifications for his negotiations at the EU summit [...]
Posted in Eastern Europe, Humanities & Social Sciences Also tagged education, EU, Europe, Kaczynski, poland, Russia, Russian Politics 6 Comments
Another common history book?
History has always been (mis-) used in political debates. Basically, every social group constructs a set of historical ‘facts’ which then are used to justify any kind of ‘political action’. The constant repetition of these ‘facts’ create history. Usually different “versions” of history exist and most of the times these versions seem incompatible even though [...]
Posted in Eastern Europe, European Debate, Humanities & Social Sciences Also tagged education, Europa, Europe, nationalism 1 Comment
EU achievements
As the weekend comes closer, the media is getting more and more enthusiastic about the achievements of the EU (for a change). The BBC came up with Ten things the EU has done for you (somehow inspired by the popular What has Europe ever done for us? -video) and a guide to the best euromyths. [...]
Posted in European Debate, European Union Also tagged EU, Europa, Europe, European Politics, UK 2 Comments
Orson Welles in Belgium
It is still working! 68 years after the original radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” by Orson Welles. Listen to the original here: [audio http://sounds.mercurytheatre.info/mercury/381030.mp3] RTBF, a Belgian public television station repeated the exercise. This time without aliens invading planet earth but with the political destruction of Belgium. In the version of (french-speaking) RTBF, [...]
Visualization of The Decline of European Empires