Outside the system
Category: History
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Boris Johnson: The Mask Slips and the True Face of Populism Reveals Itself
Otto English calls time on the eccentric Etonian image of ‘Boris’ and sees Johnson’s antagonism and disdain for Parliament as a dangerous parallel with 1930’s Germany.
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History’s Rhyme: Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell, Johnson and Cummings
As cliff-edge Britain searches around for historical analogies to a ‘No Deal’ Brexit, Arthur Snell discovers an infamous King and his ill-fated adviser are the most telling of all.
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‘Brexiters Used Empire in the Mind to Weaponise People’s Prejudices and Fantasies’
A sense of British exceptionalism based on our colonial past is “alive and kicking” in hearts and minds – and we must make ourselves aware of it, warns Lord Victor Adebowale
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Lives Left in Stone: Cologne’s Eternal Cathedral
Will Cologne’s cathedral, which was centuries in the making, ever be considered to be truly ‘finished’? Maybe nothing we build ever is.
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Art and Disaster: ‘The Delft Thunderclap’
Mike Stuchbery on how terrible moments of devastation can be overcome with creativity and vision.
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The Art of Dying – A Medieval Blockbuster for Terrible Times
Mike Stuchbery on reading one of the first printed bestsellers – a book on how to die properly – from his hospital bed.
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THE UPSIDE DOWN: Not The Normal Norfolk – The Original Opioid Crisis
John Mitchinson on the warm haze of opioid bliss – for good and for ill – experienced by the Victorians. If there ever was a golden age for hard drug use, it was the Victorian era. The widespread use of laudanum (opium dissolved in alcohol) had first been encouraged by the greatest English doctor of…
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Jacob Rees-Mogg and the Brexiters’ Persistent Myths of Empire
Britain has not really faced up to losing an empire and the unresolved cost is playing out through the traumas of Brexit.
