... or Britain's various colonial withdrawals, portrayed as a generous granting of independence that had of course been intended all along. In Germany it became bound up with sinister ultranationalist tropes and militaristic nostalgia for supposed wartime solidarity: at least few Vietnam vets wanted a re-run, even if political figures envisaged a global comeback.

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The Austrian campaign of 1809 may also have convinced him that victory on the battlefield counted for more than a capital: then it took eight more weeks to settle the issue, but Russia's huge distances might drag that out into the winter and beyond. In the event, even Moscow didn't deliver the decisive win, but that couldn't readily be foreseen in the summer.

Rather echoes the U.S. response at the close of Vietnam, which the U.S. clearly lost.

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Just, Napoleon's tactic was to defeat the enemy armies and capture the capital and leaders of the country. He made vassals out of the occupied countries, and did not fight them to the last.

Lord Stanley at Bosworth Field.

I think it was already fading then in favour of the more explicitly relative "East" or fixed area names (the earlier eclipse of "Oriental" presumably having a part in it), though Levant (the same word) survives for the eastern Mediterranean region. Norwich may consciously be adopting an old usage in keeping with the local style of the period, though in England it would probably have been more commonly just "the East".

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Please don't underestimate the immense value of a common language (despite G.B. Shaw's famous quotation!) in the hallways of politics and diplomacy. Nuance and idiom are better understood when both parties are speaking their native language. In the U.S., Americans, who are famously and woefully uneducated in any other languages (over 90% of native-born white Americans speak only one language with any fluency), are forced, as were their ancestors, to seek rapport with those who also speak their language. In international diplomacy, there is a perennial distrust of those with whom one cannot smoothly converse. Famously, interpreters in one-on-one conversations will pose a yes-or-no question on behalf of a speaker, to the other individual. And after perhaps a 30-second or more interaction, will turn to the questioner and say, "He says 'yes.'" Well, no, of course he didn't say "yes." He sought clarification, or posed a different response subjected to condensation by the interpreter. Not uncommon.

So, the Americans and their UK cousins, working around accents and idioms, were able to carry on much smoother and understandable deliberations and compromises, than either group could accomplish with any other nations (outside the Commonwealth, who unsurprisingly also remain our closest allies). Once again, famously, the 8000+ mile border between the U.S. and Canada, which has gone unguarded for over two centuries, is unprecedented in world history.

I am looking for a 21st Century history of Venice. The John Julius Norwich one I am reading is horribly outdated with terms and sensibilities strait out of the mid-century British aristocracy.

I agree. It's such an engaging read, and so many interesting, humanizing details about the people. And such a cutting wit when he talks about McClellan's many flaws.

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I am reading A History of Venice from the 1970s, and it uses the term, "the Orient," all the time. I was wondering, when that term went out of favor for historians?

One thing I always do is to look through the stuff that author’s cite. Look through the notes and bibliographies of these books and articles you are reading and you will for sure find amazing academic works!

Animal rights as well as wilderness preservation

Of course being Nazis, they even made botany racist, twisting it so that it aligned and reflect with their concept of superiority.

He’s given a first name in the novelisation.

Ya. Turns out I was the chosen one all along

> Poitier initially hesitated, reluctant to face such grave dangers although eager to help the civil rights movement, especially the young Black students risking their lives on the front lines of the struggle. His friendship with Belafonte and his genuine concern for the work the students were engaged in convinced him to go down to Mississippi.

> Poitier and Belafonte arrived at the Jackson, Mississippi, Airport. On the way to deliver the money, the car Poitier and Belafonte were in was menaced by local vigilantes whom the actors assumed to be part of the Klan. They were pursued during a high-speed chase, and men with guns fired upon their vehicle in the kind of action scene both might have filmed under less dangerous circumstances.

It was discovered by a German in 1912 and they had an agreement that they could keep some of the artifacts they found if they divided them with Egypt. So it was acquired legally although Egypt has since claimed that the German archaeologist hid it from them and blames the inspector they hired for not taking it.

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"..no one knows who they were, or...what they were doing...but their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock of Stonehenge..."

Blondi? IBM?

He’s a wonderful writer! When I encountered him, I didn’t know history could be written that way & it really opened my eyes.

Didn't Hitler also encourage people to go vegetarian?

Just because Egypt was a British protectorate didn’t mean Germans were banned from entry or archaeology. Britain and Germany were pretty friendly in 1936.