| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
15 Jul 2006 03:52:14 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Heat of the moment |
Heat of the moment
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1819731,00.html
Jan Dalley shows how The Black Hole of Calcutta was the result of
stupidity rather than cruelty, in her skilful account of
Siraj-ud-daulah's attack, says Geoffrey Moorhouse
Saturday July 15, 2006
The Guardian
The Black Hole: Money, Myth and Empire
by Jan Dalley
222pp, Fig Tree, =A316.99
It is, as Jan Dalley implies, a fair bet that most English schoolboys
(the gender is relevant because we're talking machismo here) haven't a
clue about the Black Hole of Calcutta, though in 1956 there would have
been few who didn't have at least some idea of the calamity that had
happened 200 years earlier. So far, and effectively, have we moved from
our imperial past, that we have lost any concept of what Nirad C
Chaudhuri once memorably described as the event which "threw a moral
halo over the British conquest of India". It was up there with the
Cawnpore massacre and the siege of Lucknow as a noble British tragedy
in the face of native savagery; but because it preceded them by a full
century, the Black Hole was the event that first established moral
rectitude as a justification of empire-building.
.
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| User: "John Jones" |
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| Title: . |
15 Jul 2006 06:50:54 AM |
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maff wrote:
Heat of the moment
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1819731,00.html
Jan Dalley shows how The Black Hole of Calcutta was the result of
stupidity rather than cruelty, in her skilful account of
Siraj-ud-daulah's attack, says Geoffrey Moorhouse
Saturday July 15, 2006
The Guardian
The Black Hole: Money, Myth and Empire
by Jan Dalley
222pp, Fig Tree, =A316.99
It is, as Jan Dalley implies, a fair bet that most English schoolboys
(the gender is relevant because we're talking machismo here) haven't a
clue about the Black Hole of Calcutta, though in 1956 there would have
been few who didn't have at least some idea of the calamity that had
happened 200 years earlier. So far, and effectively, have we moved from
our imperial past, that we have lost any concept of what Nirad C
Chaudhuri once memorably described as the event which "threw a moral
halo over the British conquest of India". It was up there with the
Cawnpore massacre and the siege of Lucknow as a noble British tragedy
in the face of native savagery; but because it preceded them by a full
century, the Black Hole was the event that first established moral
rectitude as a justification of empire-building.
.
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| User: "Andres64" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Heat of the moment |
15 Jul 2006 09:04:37 AM |
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maff wrote:
Heat of the moment
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1819731,00.html
Jan Dalley shows how The Black Hole of Calcutta was the result of
stupidity rather than cruelty, in her skilful account of
Siraj-ud-daulah's attack, says Geoffrey Moorhouse
Saturday July 15, 2006
The Guardian
The Black Hole: Money, Myth and Empire
by Jan Dalley
222pp, Fig Tree, =A316.99
It is, as Jan Dalley implies, a fair bet that most English schoolboys
(the gender is relevant because we're talking machismo here) haven't a
clue about the Black Hole of Calcutta, though in 1956 there would have
been few who didn't have at least some idea of the calamity that had
happened 200 years earlier. So far, and effectively, have we moved from
our imperial past, that we have lost any concept of what Nirad C
Chaudhuri once memorably described as the event which "threw a moral
halo over the British conquest of India". It was up there with the
Cawnpore massacre and the siege of Lucknow as a noble British tragedy
in the face of native savagery; but because it preceded them by a full
century, the Black Hole was the event that first established moral
rectitude as a justification of empire-building.
.
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