Burgundy, a region of France, was first a kingdom after the collapse of the Roman Empire, roughly speaking the fifth century. It was incorporated into the Carolingian Empire,…
Author: Dean Swift
‘Dean Swift’ is a pen name: the author has been a soldier; he has worked in sales, TV, the making of films, as a teacher of English and history and a journalist. He is married with three grown-up children. They live in Spain.
The reputation of Benedict Arnold
Even in 2015, some two hundred and fourteen years after his death, the name Benedict Arnold can inspìre in thinking Americans either an adverse or admiring reaction. “Traitor!’…
Further thoughts on American colonial independence
The war that established the independence from Britain of the thirteen American colonies took place between 1775 and 1783, and is improperly called ‘The American War of Independence’…
That’s Hollywood!
During the 1980s and 90s of the last century a giant crop of young, or very young male actors began appearing in major films made in Hollywood, or…
Nikolai G. Chernyshevsky
The name is unknown to most of us in the 21st century, and seems to be in a state of banishment from the minds of some of today’s…
Further thoughts on the Ardennes Offensive
Shakespeare has generals dancing together in a suitably stately manner, on board ships in his play Antony and Cleopatra. The Battle of the Bulge, a nickname, properly called…
Alsace/Lorraine & Schleswig/Holstein
These two tongue-twisters used not only to twist tongues, but eject furious spittle from the pursed mouth of European statesmen and politicians. The problem is not only of…
Queen Elizabeth I (the ‘Virgin Queen’)
The only half-decent member of the infamous Tudor dynasty was Elizabeth, born in 1533. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn. It…
The importance of being Okinawa
In April, 1945, the 2nd World War was very far from over. A huge invasion of the French mainland was planned for June. Japan, however, was seen by…
The ‘White Terror’
It is a common misconception that the French Revolution (q.v.), the ‘Terror’ and the fall of Robespierre and other leading Jacobins, led immediately to the rise of Napoleon…