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The supreme arts and literature of ancient Athens all sprang from the State’s refusal to interfere in the life of the citizen.
In 1808, William Mitford (1744-1827) published a History of Greece to the death of Alexander in 327 BC. A recurrent theme of his narrative was a horror of the kind of popular politics for which Athens is famous, and his conviction that stability comes from a close-knit group of elder statesmen keeping the country on a tight rein. Macaulay completely disagreed.
Posted August 18 2021
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John Bright told his Birmingham constituents that if Britain was indeed a great nation, it was because her public was contented and not because her empire was wide.
After John Bright MP criticised British imperial policy in India, saying it was too much about the glories of empire and too little about the condition of the people, a Calcutta newspaper scolded him and reminded him solemnly of the greatness of Rome. But Bright was unrepentant, and speaking to his constituents in Birmingham on October 29th, 1858, he brought his lesson closer to home.
Posted August 16 2021
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John Bright asked the people of Birmingham to spread the word that a great nation, like any good citizen and neighbour, does not meddle officiously in the affairs of others.
In the 1850s, prevailing opinion in Europe was that peace and prosperity depended on the diplomacy and military interventions of a few exceptional ‘Great Powers’. John Bright MP, however, told his Birmingham constituents that nations had to observe the same humble morality as citizens do. No one likes domineering and meddlesome people, and history shows that there is always a reckoning eventually.
Posted August 16 2021
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Emperor Julian cast off his Christian upbringing to gain the favour of Rome’s pagan gods, but in the heat of battle they deserted him.
Roman Emperor Flavius Claudius Iulianus (r. 361-363) earned his nickname ‘Julian the Apostate’ by trying to stamp out the Christian Church in which he had been brought up, while transferring its charitable activities to the State. He failed in both, and his military campaign in Persia was no more successful. Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, believed his death illustrated Julian’s weakness of mind and character.
Posted August 14 2021
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John Milton reminded Parliament that the Truth wasn’t what they and their fact-checkers in Stationers’ Hall made it.
In 1643, shortly after the Civil War with Charles I (r. 1625-1649) began, Parliament ordered a crackdown on what we would call fake news and disinformation, censoring and licensing political comment and telling the public only what Parliament thought it was good for us to know. John Milton, himself a Parliamentarian, felt obliged to publish an anguished protest at such cowardly behaviour.
Posted August 14 2021
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Hannah Mullens describes her battle to reach out to wealthy Indian ladies with nothing to do, nothing to think about and nowhere to go.
From the 1850s, Calcutta-born Hannah Mullens (1826–1861) travelled all over India trying to bring literacy, self-respect and spiritual consolation into the dreary leisure of zenanas, the cloistered women’s quarters of well-to-do Indian families. The following account is taken from a letter she wrote from Nagercoil on India’s southernmost tip, then in the Kingdom of Travancore.
Posted August 11 2021