Showing 1 - 9 of 9
Pulling it all together
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 21/07/2017
» What I learned from years of backpacking is that there's no single pattern of development. Every country I've been to has had its unique history, which is why the prospect of globalisation is incongruous and why mother countries couldn't hold on to their colonies.
Empires don't endure the ages
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 23/05/2016
» Empires have come and gone throughout human history -- some lasting more than a millennium, others less than a century. Contemporary historians keep analysing the reasons for their rise and fall. They peruse the same documents and works of earlier historians and eyewitnesses, yet often arrive at differing conclusions.
More old hat
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 14/09/2015
» Together with their military, British boffins played a major role in defeating their Teutonic foes. Their whizz kids -- scientists, academic -- came up with radar and opened up the Enigma machine. (During World War I they invented the tank.) Hitler's boast of winning the war with secret weapons was played down.
The Preacher vs the Tracker
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 09/06/2014
» In times of war, those we are fighting are our foes and the enemies of all mankind. We can’t excoriate them enough. But in times of peace, which bogeymen do we direct our fear and hatred at? In the cinema, it is aliens from other galaxies and creatures from beneath the earth. Novelists turn to the mass media and find that they have three choices: Muslim terrorists; Somali pirates; Russia’s expansionist activities. To be sure, each is dangerous in the short and long run. Writers whose plots contain two of the three deserve a gold star. A brickbat to those who throw in one to spice up their dull stories.
An honest lawyer
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 17/02/2014
» Truth be told — I’m a sucker for courtroom dramas. Inherit The Wind, Witness For The Prosecution and Judgement At Nuremberg are my all-time favourites. Some courtroom novels or plays are adapted to the screen, others made into movies or television shows. Many remain in book form.
Smoke jumpers
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 12/11/2012
» I'd thought that James Patterson, on his own and with co-authors, penned the most novels until I came across Nora Roberts. Under her own name and also the pseudonym JD Robb she has ground out 190 works of fiction to date without a co-author. To her credit, talent-wise she gives Patterson a run for his money.
Scholar turned warrior
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 29/10/2012
» Wars of succession harken back to earliest recorded history. Turning wives against husbands, sisters against brothers, aunts against nephews. The temptation to wear the crown and wield the power of the throne is greater than the blood ties that supposedly hold families together. If driven away by the monarchy becoming a republic, the royalists wait in exile to be summoned home by the acclamation of the populace.
A Roman bladewielder
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 06/08/2012
» There are anomalies about the ancient world that defy explanation. Such as why Mussolini's efforts in the 20th century to revive the glory that was Rome two millennia before failed. Excuses about poor modern-day equipment don't cut it. Clearly they lacked the requisite vital ingredient of their ancestors. They needed poison gas to subdue the backward Ethiopians.
A good, not great read
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 19/03/2012
» One of the differences between a book in hardback and in paperback is that the paperback contains snippets from the favourable reviews of the hardbacks published to a year earlier. This puts the critics of the paperbacks who didn't read the book in hardbacks in an unenviable position, at least those who found the praise exaggerated.