Lenin and the Russian Revolution: A Reflection Pt.2

06/02/2019

Nationalism and Imperialism

In part 1, I talked about the possibility of a socialist revolution taking place today. The chances are quite small in my view, and one of the reasons for that is the ideological divides and how people perceive different –isms. In this piece, I just want to touch on nationalism and imperialism, with reference to ideas of Lenin’s quoted in Christopher Hill’s Lenin and the Russian Revolution.

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Lenin and the Russian Revolution: A Reflection Pt.1

06/02/2019

Revolution

It took longer than I intended (it was a relatively short book), but I have finally finished Christopher Hill’s brief book on the Russian Revolution, which spoke of it through the lens of Lenin’s ideas and actions. I’ll most definitely have to read some other books about the time period to have a more in depth understanding and context surrounding the Revolution as it was rather limited. Despite this, it did offer a fair amount of introductory insight to the years (approximately) 1903-1924, and there are ideas worth exploring.

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We Don’t Have To Apologise, We Need To Acknowledge

29/01/2019

As the Australia Day hype pretty much dies after it happens, there has been a recurring image online that has sparked controversy. Quite frankly, it is just an ill-informed post looking for some quick attention from an equally ill-informed crowd.

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What Is History?: A Reflection Pt.4

06/01/2019

History as a Means for Prejudice

As I come to the conclusion of What Is History? by E. H. Carr, I must highly recommend it as required reading for anyone interested in history in any sense of the word. An understanding of earlier thinkers, such as Marx, Hegel, Acton, etc. would be useful but is not necessary; I knew some of the references made, but Carr explains enough so as to not convolute his point with obscure names and ideas. For this piece, I lean back on an assertion made in the first piece and tie it with a topic Carr talks about in the final lecture of the book. This is that history is viewed by the historian (an individual) through the lens of the society he is a product of. This has positive and negative elements, but the isolation of subgroups of humanity (be it geographic, racial, etc.) is a negative that takes form when history is distorted through a prejudicial lens.

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Can We Judge History Through a Moral Lens?

05/01/2019

The short answer to this rather nuanced question is, in my opinion, yes but with relevant context. I say opinion because there is no ‘right’ answer, and each person might differ in their response on each separate case. There are a number of factors that feed into this, most important being the context of the time period in question.

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What Is History?: A Reflection Pt.3

05/01/2019

History as a Method of Prediction

Again I loosely refer to the concepts introduced by Carr in his book What Is History?, but intend on using that as merely inspiration for my own thoughts on this topic and not as a recounting of his views. I’ve previously written about how history can be used as a comparative tool and as context to more succinctly understand current events (causation, which, coincidentally, is the chapter I am up to in Carr’s book). I have also written a few pieces predicting what I believe may happen in the near future based on the historical context of the region. There are also moral and factual aspects of these predictions that I believe are important, not because they have any bearing on the prediction itself, but on the person who made it and reason it was made.

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What Is History?: A Reflection Pt.2

04/01/2019

Societal and Individual Influences

Having finished the second lecture/chapter in E. H. Carr’s book What Is History?, I feel it’s prudent to comment on things as they come up rather than try and whip together an incoherent mess covering all the topics introduced. For this one, I actually don’t have overly much to say on the historical aspect of this lecture – most of which simply elaborated on the previously explored idea that a historian viewed the past through the eyes of present events and as a product of his/her society – but more branching off to consider what he says about the “society and the individual” (the title of the lecture).

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What Is History?: A Reflection Pt.1

03/01/2019

Interpretations of Historical Fact

I tentatively title this “Pt.1” as this is merely a train of thought following what I have read so far of E. H. Carr’s What Is History?; that is, I have only read the first lecture so far and will probably comment on the rest when I get around to it. The first lecture is entitled “The Historian and His Facts”, and it offers a perspective on history I hadn’t considered before (and that I agree with to an extent), as well as talking about a point I’ve written about previously – albeit much less succinctly than Carr – and that is how history is “an unending dialogue between the present and the past.”

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History as a Comparative Tool and Causation

02/01/2019

I am currently reading The Trial by Franz Kafka, as a bit of a step away from the nonfiction pile of books, but my next planned read is What Is History? by E. H. Carr. As I have done with a couple of books prior, I’ll probably write some thoughts about it when I read it, but there is one point about history that I believe is quite important. The catch is, it’s not a very popular opinion to some, and more than once I’ve found myself on the receiving end of some unsavoury comments. It is this: that it is necessary and beneficial to draw comparisons between different people and events to gain a better understanding of what is occurring today, and to understand the cause of current events as a result of history.

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Zionism: A Quick Observation

25/11/2018

My current read is a book I have borrowed from my granddad, One Palestine, Complete, by Tom Segev about Palestine under the British mandate (from the end of WW1 to the creation of the modern state of Israel). I am only a few chapters in, but there appear to be a few contradictions, both from the author and in a broader sense, in the ideology behind the Zionist movement.

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