The year 1917 was a significant one in the history of the Great War, and in no country was that more true than Russia. It began with a revolution in February of that year in which power was transferred from the autocratic Romanov dynasty to a provisional government and ended with a toppling of the […]
At the beginning of 1917, the outlook for the Russian army on the Eastern Front was pretty bleak. A brief glimmer of hope had shined in the summer and early fall of 1916, when Russian general Aleksei Brusilov had led a highly successful advance on the German lines. The Brusilov Offensive was the high point […]
While weather and its effects on both battlefields and trenches was a recurring theme during World War I, in no battle was this problem more pronounced than what occurred during the battle of Passchendaele in the late summer and early fall of 1917. Rain and mud were the defining features of this battle, and it […]
At the end of Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century (2017, Blue Rider Press), Klosterman makes the curious curatorial decision to group seven essays about heavy metal before concluding with four essays about death. I say this is curious because the essays about heavy metal are Klosterman at his […]
In order to get a sense of what it was like to experience those early days of Passchendaele, one has only to listen to the voices of those who were there. In looking at the accounts written by those who were involved with the battle, you can come to an understanding, not of dispassionate battlefield […]
If you have been reading the news lately, you might be familiar with what some have called the Seattle minimum wage disaster. According to this recent study from the University of Washington, Seattle’s recent hike, which raised the minimum wage from $10 to $13, caused the average low-wage worker to lose more than 6 percent […]
On July 31, 1917, the British Expeditionary Force launched the initial assault that would be the Third Battle of Ypres, although it is better known to us as Passchendaele. Passchendaele was yet another in a long line of failed offensives on both sides, and for a war that in its third year had seen many […]
The New York Times has a problem. Well actually, The New York Times has a litany of problems—cries of “fake news,” the so-proclaimed death of journalism, etc.—but all of those are external problems. The New York Times has another problem, an internal problem, a let’s-shoot-ourselves-in-the-foot-and-call-it-journalism problem. That problem is nuanced sourcing, and The New York Times has […]
In previous submissions, I dealt with two themes found in Patty Jenkins’s new film, Wonder Woman. My third and final examination of the most prominent World War 1 elements in this film concerns one of the primary villains, German general Erich Ludendorff. In the film, Ludendorff is a somewhat one-note villain with an obsession for […]
As a largely simple-minded society, we are fascinated with the idea of an individual pivot. Someone forsaking their chosen path to venture unknown down a possibly related, possibly not other path baffles us. Why did Michael Jordan pivot from basketball to baseball? Why did Arnold Schwarzenegger pivot from acting to politics? The voluntary pivot defies […]
