Free Republic

More than 300 prominent historians, including Simon Schama and Niall Ferguson, are warning voters that if they choose to leave the European Union on 23 June they will condemn Britain to irrelevance. In a letter to the Guardian, the academics and writers argue that the referendum offers a chance to underscore the “irreplaceable role” Britain has played, and should continue to play, in Europe’s history. “As historians of Britain and of Europe, we believe that Britain has had in the past, and will have in the future, an irreplaceable role to play in Europe,” the letter says. “On 23 June,...

A British organization has launched an ambitious project aimed at restoring old, abandoned synagogues across Europe and bringing them back to community life, and commemorating communities that were wiped out in the Holocaust. The Foundation of Jewish Heritage has identified 3,300 pre-Second World War buildings used for Jewish prayer, of which at least 19 could be brought back into use - out of an estimated total of 17,000 that were in use before the Second World War. The remaining buildings, of which just 718 are still being used as synagogues, have been carefully catalogued based on their artistic, urban, and...

Penning an article for the Financial Times, historian Simon Schama, a liberal belonging to the establishment, writes that “the problem of the left with the Jews has a long and unfortunate history” and that “criticism of Israeli government policies became a rejection of Israel’s right to exist”. Schama then asks: “Why is it so much easier to hate the Jews?” This is an article that should be sent to all those intellectuals, journalists, writers, academics who for years, every day, in Italy and the West, demonized the Jewish State. The good people on the left who feel that it is...

On Monday evening, the BBC altered its programme schedule to broadcast an hour-long tribute to an old man who had died aged 95, with fawning contributions from the likes of historian Simon Schama and Labour peer Melvyn Bragg. The next day, the Left-leaning Guardian filled not only the front page and the whole of an inside page but also devoted almost its entire G2 Supplement to the news. The Times devoted a leading article to the death, and a two-page obituary. You might imagine, given all this coverage and the fact that Tony Blair and Ed Miliband also went out...

A poll of almost 10,000 Americans conducted in January shows there is no consensus on the topic of Black History Month. The survey, conducted by MSN and Zogby International, found that 43 percent of Americans believe setting one month of the year to focus on a racially defined observance is a token gesture, while 39 percent say that is an opportunity to raise awareness of African-American history and accomplishments (18 percent are not sure). Is it, as one scholar wrote in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, "simply a guilt-driven public relations scam to pacify blacks who otherwise receive...

Moore's book was originally shelved by US publishers A satirical anti-war attack on President George Bush and the US political machine was the surprise winner of the top prize at the British Book Awards. Stupid White Men, by author and filmmaker Michael Moore, took the Book of the Year award. Moore's book beat Roy Keane's bestselling autobiography, one of the fancied favourites, as well as Booker winner, Life of Pi, and Ian McEwan's Atonement. Moore's triumph was boosted by a strong telephone vote from the public, who were invited to participate in the awards for the first time this year....

WE NEED JAW-JAW AND LAW-LAW BEFORE WAR-WAR Today we mourn the 3,044 people killed in the world's worst terrorist attack, and ask how many more lives the War on Terror will cost...THIS WAR IS A FAILURENot a single leading member of al Qaeda has been captured or confirmed as killed, says John Pilger...BOY GEORGE The shortcomings of George W Bush are what make him so fascinating, says Christopher Hitchens... The Dead and the GuiltySimon Schama on the questions Americans should be asking on the anniversary of September 11.Was Septemnber 11th a work of art?"Talk: British artist Damien Hirst has...

If Europe’s ultra-Left has so far reaped little dividend from the great "Crisis of Capitalism", this will surely change as the eurozone’s 1930s policies of wage deflation sap the credibility of the governing centre and the EU itself. The tragedy of the interwar years in Germany was that the Social Democrats - then the world’s foremost socialist party - became fatally tainted by acquiescing in Bruning’s deflation torture from 1930 to 1932. They did so, of course, because they dared not confront the orthodoxies of the Gold Standard. By then the fixed-exchange mechanism had gone horribly wrong - in much...

Exactly 350 years ago, we began to be a multi-racial society. 1656 marked the return of Jews to England. They had been driven out by an edict of Edward I in 1290. In the intervening centuries - known as the Middle Period - Jews quite often came to this country on business, but they were not permitted to reside here or practise their religion. Their status, in fact, was that of Christians (and Jews) in Saudi Arabia today. In 1656, Cromwell let 300 of them return, and Jews have been here ever since. Among the eventual consequences of this re-admission...

The American attitude toward the French Revolution has been generally favorable—naturally enough for a nation itself born in revolution. But as revolutions go, the French one in 1789 was among the worst. True, in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity, it overthrew a corrupt regime. Yet what these fine ideals led to was, first, the Terror and mass murder in France, and then Napoleon and his wars, which took hundreds of thousands of lives in Europe and Russia. After this pointless slaughter came the restoration of the same corrupt regime that the Revolution overthrew. Aside from immense suffering, the...

The evasions, distractions, and miasma of the anti-war left. EITHER SADDAM HUSSEIN will remain in power or he will be deposed. President Bush has suggested deposing him, but as the debate over that proposal has evolved, an interesting pattern has emerged. The people in the peace camp attack President Bush's plan, but they are unwilling to face the implications of their own. Almost nobody in the peace camp will stand up and say that Saddam Hussein is not a fundamental problem for the world. Almost nobody in that camp is willing even to describe what the world will look like...

The terrorist attacks of 7 July, as the ludicrous BBC refuses to call them, have raised many questions. We might ask what turned ordinary Muslim youths into mass murderers. Or we might wonder how a religion of peace can inspire people to terrorism across the world. A more pressing question, however, is: why Britain? Not why was Britain attacked, because the list of countries targeted by Islamist terrorism is growing so fast it will soon be quicker to list those unaffected. But rather: why did Britain become the first country in the developed world to produce its own suicide bombers?...

The big question after Tuesday was: will it just be more of the same in George W Bush's second term, or will there be a change of tone? And apparently it's the latter. The great European thinkers have decided that instead of doing another four years of lame Bush-is-a-moron cracks they're going to do four years of lame Americans-are-morons cracks. Inaugurating the new second-term outreach was Brian Reade in the Daily Mirror, who attributed the President's victory to: "The self-righteous, gun-totin', military-lovin', sister-marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport-ownin' rednecks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so...

One hundred and sixteen years ago Friedrich Nietzsche pronounced Western civilization ready to move "Beyond Good and Evil," the famous title of his last major book. George W. Bush begs to differ. In so doing, he has reopened one of the great controversies of modern times. We are, says Bush, engaged today in "a monumental struggle between good and evil." It is only in these old terms, he believes, that we can make sense of our world. As Bush told the American people on September 11: "Today, our nation saw evil." Bush's conception of evil stands as a stark monument...

Kissing cousins: New York literati and Nazis -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: March 19, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Universal Press Syndicate It became clear the nation was finally going to war with Iraq this week when the New York Times pulled two dozen reporters off the Augusta National Golf Club story. In a speech to the nation on Monday night, President Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to get out of Baghdad, warning that the American military was poised to remove him forcibly. Many still held out hope that Saddam would abandon power without a fight, primarily so we could listen...

It's lonely at the top Exclusive Excerpt: In his new book, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, Mark Steyn finds the U.S. uniquely prepared to survive the clash of civilizations Mark Steyn - October 23, 2006 America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It by Mark Steyn Regnery, 256 pages Were I a Kerry voter, though, I'd feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets. The self-righteous, gun-totin', military-lovin', sister-marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin',...

The oil polluting Louisiana’s marshes lies about 5,000 miles away from Britain’s coastline. But while wildlife, the fishing industry and tourism here are safe from the slick, the leak is hitting Britons’ pockets and their pride. By Wednesday night, BP's shares had lost more than half of their market value -- or at least $71 billion -- in the 52 days since the crisis began. Almost every pension fund in the U.K. owns shares in the energy giant, raising serious questions about the impact the firm's plummeting value will have on the retirement plans for millions of Britons. President Barack...

US President Barack Obama's inspirational speech at the UN included more than a few passages about the Middle East conflict. He expressed the hope for "a just and lasting peace between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world," a wish shared by all Israelis. Upon closer look at some of the president's statements, several question marks arise. Obama addresses the 64th session of the General Assembly at United Nations headquarters. Photo: AP [file] The speech didn't, for instance, mention Islamic fundamentalism or Jihadism, the principal reasons for instability in the Middle East and beyond. Nor did it condemn the Arab world's...

When word spread that the legendary Tina Brown was going to take over as editor of Newsweek, merging it with her news and aggregation site The Daily Beast, it did wonders for morale at the moribund magazine. “Initially, a lot of us were really excited,” says one recently departed editor. “The attitude was, Tina Brown was coming in to save Newsweek.” But now, three months into her reign, current and former staffers describe a newsroom in a constant state of turmoil, uncertainty, and confusion. On the eve of Newsweek’s relaunch in March, Brown sought to distance herself from past extravagances,...

It is one of the happy sidelines of British culture that we produce the best tele-historians, rather as we used to produce — perhaps still do — the best Shakespearean actors. Since the classical period of A.J.P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper, still with us as Lord Dacre of Glanton, we have moved to the modern times of Niall Ferguson, Simon Schama and David Starkey. Last Thursday Professor Ferguson was presenting the first episode of his ambitious Channel 4 series Empire. It is likely to win him this year’s Golden Lorgnette, or whatever the award for television historians is called. Dr...