Showing 1-10 of 24 results
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Isis thwarted
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 26/12/2019
» Until the 20th century, jihadists had no bones to pick with the US. Their ire was directed at the UK and France who coveted their lands, and the Jews trying to carve out their own. They got good press when T.E. Lawrence led the Arabs against the enemy Ottoman Turks. The silent film The Sheik romanticised them. The Riffs were favoured in their uprising against Spain. They didn't participate in the North African campaign in World War II.
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Isis destroyed
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 06/09/2018
» As most of the hijackers responsible for the 9/11 outrage were Saudi Arabian, it stands to reason that the US would take the kingdom to task. Instead, Washington turned its ire on Afghanistan and Iraq. How could that be? In fact, it made sense. America is Saudi's biggest oil customer and didn't want it to stop flowing, the more than 3,000 dead at New York's Twin Towers notwithstanding.
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Choosing sides
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 08/12/2017
» Not long ago a historian calculated that throughout human history there has been a total of fewer than 25 years of peace. There were wars somewhere on the planet the rest of the time. The clear meaning is that homo sapiens are a violent, bloodthirsty lot.
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Indian pirates
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 26/10/2017
» Pirates have been around as long as people travelled and traded by sea. A young Julius Caesar was among their prey two millennia ago. The fledgling US Navy pulverised those on the Barbary Coast two centuries ago. Still the pirates persevere -- from the Somali variety to those in the Pacific.
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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.
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Be prepared
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 09/06/2017
» A reporter outside my homeland for more than a half-century, I never had the gall to call myself a foreign correspondent, lacking the qualifications of working for an American publication -- my byline in India, Japan and Thailand notwithstanding -- even though Time magazine gave me an honourable mention.
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The actual arch-enemy
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 03/02/2017
» For several years after the start of the Counter Crusades -- the Middle East's invasion of Europe -- it was unhealthy for the European media to say or write anything that was negative to the Holy Book. Its extremist adherents attacked the source and blood flowed. Fleeing the scene, no suicide bombers they, so-called Islamic State proudly boasted of the murders.
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An amazing guidebook
Life, Bernard Trink, Published on 30/03/2015
» Go to any bookshop here and you will find a shelf full of guides to Thailand, many penned by farangs, several with lovely scenic photos. They cover much the same ground. The Thai people are nice in every respect, yet they have quaint practices you are expected to heed. But what can you expect? It's a foreign land, a third-world country, that needs catching up. Give it another century or so.
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History or sci-fi?
Life, Published on 19/01/2015
» Historians and historical novelists have their favourite periods. Ancient Rome, the Crusades, the Tudors for some. Early Christianity, the Mongol conquests, the Napoleonic wars for others. Imperialism, exploration, World War II for others still. British author David Gibbins, for one, has turned his attention to Atlantis. Troy, the Old Testament.
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