The Rhine River

Random Notes

Yesterday, I found this article about the role of women in the government of the Mongolian Empire. To put it bluntly, they ruled while men fought, and they were responsible for the administrative development and diplomacy. On as similar not, the Japanese legislature is considering a reform that would allow the imperial throne to pass through a female emperor; one historian has even suggesting restoring the imperial status of courts that had been lost because lineage ended with a female emperor. The reform, however, appears to have met a lot of resistance. (HT: Jonathan Dresner)

The Boston Globe has an article about the controversy over Berlin's Palace of the Republic. Built by the DDR, the federal republic wants to demolish it to rid themselves of the vestiges of the communist regime and replace it, of all things, with a reconstructed Hohenzollern palace, the center of Prussian militarism. I blogged about this before here.

If memory is a strange thing, the filming of Fateless proves it. Imre Kertéz, returning to the places and stories that formed his autobiographical novel of childhood set against the Holocaust, found the experience 'beautiful.'

Finally, in order to give the Dreyfus Affair the place it deserves, I gave my ten events to understand contemporary France at Cliopatria. Warning: it won't please anyone who works on premodern France. It was still a fruitful exercise, one that I might repeat.

posted by Nathanael @ 10:46 AM