In previous posts we have seen how the two largest countries in the world, Russia and Canada, were to plan, construct and successfully manage transcontinental railways, a marvellous…
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.
Burke, politician, essayist & long-lasting influence
Edmund Burke was born in Dublin in 1729. Educated in this city, it was not long before he quit ‘the bogs of Ireland’ and moved to London, where…
Bonapartism
This is not merely a philosophy: it is a political movement, a system of governance, and a decided set of political principles. As a political movement it was…
What was the Cheka?
This colourful European word in initials stood for ‘The Extraordinary Commission for combatting Counter-Revolution, Sabotage and Speculation’ and we will not attempt to put that in Russian. It…
The Trans-Siberian Railway
Only six years after the first trans-continental railway (Canadian Pacific q.v.) was opened, Russia followed suit with her very lengthy railroad built between Moscow (actually Chelyabinsk in the…
The Canadian Pacific Railway
The name of the longest railway in the world may confuse. It is transcontinental, not a railroad running along the western or Pacific coast of Canada. Work began…
New Year’s message from Dean Swift
The book, a compilation of selected articles from three years of General-History.com is keeping us all it, mainly because the website has so many categories. Between bouts of…
The Enigma of Hirohito
This controversial Emperor of Japan was born in the same year (1901) Queen Victoria died, and the two monarchs shared much the same mystique. The Emperor was the…
The Blackshirts
This was an early 20th century nickname or expression facilely describing the ‘Action Squads’ or ‘Squadre d’Azione. These were ‘fascist’ paramilitary groups formed in Italy before 1920. They…