Alex Raines
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“So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens - four dowager and three regnant - and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.”
― The Guns of August
― The Guns of August
“Sabit was his own worst enemy. He had earlier given a TV interview where he had called one of the top religious men in the country a 'donkey pussy,' a common epithet in Afghanistan. Tolo started playing the clip of Sabit saying 'donkey pussy' incessantly - inserting it into the satirical TV show Danger Bell.”
― The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan
― The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan
“Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.”
― The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
― The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
“For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.”
― A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
― A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
“At the heart of the Reformation message was a rejection of the power of individual believers, or of the church acting on their behalf, to affect God's judgment about who should be saved and who should be damned. Martin Luther had been convinced, like Augustine, of the powerlessness and unworthiness of fallen humanity, and struck by the force of God's mercy. Good works could not merit this mercy, or affect a sovereign God; instead individual sinners were entirely dependent on God's mercy and justified (saved) by faith alone. Jean Calvin, a generation later, developed more clearly the predestinarian implications - since some men were saved and some were damned, and since this had nothing to do with their own efforts, it must mean that God had created some men predestined for salvation (the elect). This seemed to imply that He must also have predestined other men for damnation (double predestination), a line of argument which led into dangerous territory. Some theologians, Calvin's close associate Beza among them, went further and argued that the entire course of human history was foreordained prior to Adam and Eve's fall in the Garden of Eden. These views (particularly the latter, 'supralapsarian' arguments) seemed to their opponents to suggest that God was the author of the sin, both in Eden and in those who were subsequently predestined for damnation. They also raised a question about Christ's sacrifice on the cross - had that been made to atone for the sins of all, or only of the elect? Because of these dangers many of those with strong predestinarian views were unsure about whether the doctrine should be openly preached. Clever theologians, like expensive lawyers, are adept at failing to push arguments too far and there were many respectable positions short of the one adopted by Beza. But predestination was for many Protestants a fundamental - retreat from this doctrine implied a role for free will expressed in works rather than justification by faith. It thus reopened the door to the corruptions of late-medieval Christianity.”
― God's Fury, England's Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars
― God's Fury, England's Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars
The History Book Club
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"Interested in history - then you have found the right group". The History Book Club is the largest history and nonfiction group on Goodread ...more
"Interested in history - then you have found the right group". The History Book Club is the largest history and nonfiction group on Goodread ...more
Alex’s 2023 Year in Books
Take a look at Alex’s Year in Books. The good, the bad, the long, the short—it’s all here.
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