Dean Swift

The last of Alexander the Great

Colin Farrell (Alexander) & Jared Leto (Hephaistion) in a scene from the movie Alexander the Great by Oliver Stone

On a stifling June day in Babylon, 2334 years ago, Alexander of Macedon died. He had been to a party the night before, but left well before the end – unusual for this extraordinary man, who had conquered most of the known world in his twenties. He had a bath after the party, in a bath house near his swimming pool, and spent the rest of the night there. In the morning he already had a high fever. A terrible sickness was advancing, and he knew it. He ordered all his generals and chief officers to be brought to him, and the lesser ones gathered outside his door. But he discovered he could not talk to them. A man of lesser physique and lower powers of resistance would have developed pneumonia earlier. It appears that it had spread from the damaged areas of his lungs into the scar tissues on the numerous wounds he had on the front of his body. There were none on his back. In fact he had what modern doctors would diagnose as pleurisy. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-06-09T10:05:44+00:00 June 9th, 2011|Greek History|0 Comments

Every head in the trough

Mariano Rajoy recently promised a long list of reforms that he will implement, he says, when he becomes President of the Government. Most thinking Spaniards hope he is being truthful. The cost of running modern Spain is ruinous, and has been ruining the state for long enough. The problem started with the coming of democracy and a Constitution. A group of politicians sagely decided to divide the country into seventeen ‘autonomous communities’. Roughly speaking, these invented communities were once known as ‘regions’, Cataluña, Madrid, Galicia etc. Though each community has its own Parliament, and an Assembly running its capital town, and is able to press taxation on its citizens, it is the extraordinarily high cost of running these communities which makes them apply for more, much more, from Spain’s coffers as an added subsidy. What this is worth per community can be found on the Internet. The sum per annum varies according to geographical size and population as well as other factors. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-06-05T21:41:40+00:00 June 5th, 2011|Spanish History|0 Comments

The Korean War 1950-1953

Moment of solitude during the Korean War / warhistoryonline.com

All wars are bloody, some are found to be unnecessary after the event. The Great War (1914 – 18) was unnecessary and could have been avoided, if the politicians involved had had the least interest in avoiding it. Sadly, it is not the politicians who have actually to fight a war, or die in it, though some of the decisions made during it are so bad, the politicians should by rights commit suicide, or at least do the right thing by suffering a heart attack. History shows that attacks of remorse are rare among politicians. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-06-05T21:37:57+00:00 June 5th, 2011|History of Korea|2 Comments

Henry II and Thomas Becket

Henry II

“Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?”

Henry II, King of England (1133 – 89) succeeded King Stephen in 1154. Henry was not Stephen’s son, but took the throne because Stephen had recognised Henry as his heir in the Treaty of Winchester (1153). The new King was the lawful son of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. On Geoffrey’s death young Henry inherited Normandy, Maine (not the State in New England please), Touraine, Brittany and Anjou, in France. This last section of France made Henry the first Angevin King of England.
Henry married the richest woman in Europe, Eleanor de Aquitaine in 1152 when he was 19. Eleanor had been abandoned by a French King, Louis VI, for reasons that are too complicated to go into. The marriage brought Henry even greater estates than he had before, and his kingdom now stretched from the north of England south to the Pyrenees. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2016-02-13T19:44:34+00:00 May 30th, 2011|English History|2 Comments

Encounters of the socialist kind

Since earning the right to, I used to vote if I voted at all, for the Labour Party. I was young and thoughtful, and Fabian ideas seemed correct to me for half of my life. What happened to change my ideology was not a St. Paul-like conversion, but a gradual realisation that Socialism was a very necessary ideal that evolved in the 19th century, became essential in the Europe of the first half of the 20th, and redundant in the second. In the 21st century, as has been proven, it is no more than an excuse to gain power. The reasons are many, but the most important is that Socialism, like the Church, is based on sensible required ideas, erroneously interpreted by human beings. The difference is that Socialism is the means by which men and women seek power without opposition or debate, whereas the Church is, or should be a means to an end – the end meaning a quiet and reflective death with one’s conscience at peace. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-05-24T11:06:11+00:00 May 24th, 2011|Today, World History|0 Comments

Sir Winston Churchill

In other sections of this history blog can be found brief lives of Franklin Roosevelt (All American Presidents) and Joseph Stalin. Joined by Churchill at a number of special meetings at the end of the Second World War, these three supremely powerful grandfathers divided up the world; they awarded nation after nation to Stalin’s Soviet Russia, thus leading to the Iron Curtain, Russo/American political conflict, the Cold War, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Berlin Wall, the astonishing rise of The American Empire (qv) and the inevitable fall of the British Empire (qv).

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By Dean Swift| 2015-01-17T12:43:52+00:00 May 22nd, 2011|English History, EU History, World History|3 Comments

Three English medieval mafiosi

Anwick, ancient home of the Percies / facebook.com

All three descended from Norman knights who accompanied the bastard Duke of Normandy in the successful invasion of England. Once established as William I (The Conquerer), the new monarch gave enormous gifts of land to most if not all of the lordly French and Norman soldiers who had assisted him in the defeat of the Saxons. Three descendents of original Norman knights became so important in subsequent English history that they changed it, perhaps not with the best motives in mind. Their sheer power and influence (for the time) is awesome, and can only be compared with the Sicilian and later American capos of the 19th and 20th centuries, with whose manner, style and ruthlessness they share many similarities. They are John of Gaunt (or Ghent), Henry Percy and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-05-18T12:20:01+00:00 May 18th, 2011|World History|0 Comments

Speaking of Cuts

This Spanish government is fond of making cuts. They have cut deeply into civil servants’ monthly wage packet, and frozen older people’s pension. But, strange to speak, they have not decreased the 189% tax on a litre of petrol, or the more than 200% tax on a packet of fags. Here are nine suggestions of cuts that could indeed be made – if this government were speaking the truth when they reiterate that they wish to succour and save the Spanish economy. I fear this is a vain presumption, as this government has not spoken a word of truth sin ce it was elected by what they call ‘the vast majority of the population’. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-05-17T09:39:50+00:00 May 17th, 2011|World History|0 Comments

Unemployed youth in Spain

Spain’s President of the Government, was recently loose (but sadly not lost) in China trying to sell a chunk of Spain’s debt to the canny Chinese. This must be the nth mistake in his disastrous seven years in power – without a majority. It is possibly his worst. He has broken all his promises to the young people of Spain, to whom he offered the world, and who are left with nothing but a useless degree or pair of hands. There are no jobs for Spain’s young people – qualified or not.
43+% of young men and women fit and able for work have no jobs. There is nothing on the horizon for them, short or long-term. Besides, the phantasy of the Dole is forcing them to leave Spain altogether, seeking work in other countries which, if and when they find it, will be guaranteed to make them have no wish to return. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-05-12T12:00:29+00:00 May 12th, 2011|Spanish History|2 Comments

Oxford and Cambridge: The future depends on Independence

In a country like the United Kingdom where there are already far too many universities with few and fewer applicants, the names Oxford (founded c. 1150) and Cambridge (founded c. 1209) should mean more than just a boat race; let them kick away the traces and shine among the world’s oldest centres of learning with the freedom that comes from total independence. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-05-12T11:55:10+00:00 May 12th, 2011|English History|0 Comments

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