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1900-Present
Concrete Bookshelf | Framing the Great New York Novels of the 20th Century
New York City may be a little full of itself. It may be the tiniest bit arrogant. It may even be a loudmouth narcissist strutting around like the world is its catwalk. But it’s not easy to keep round-the-clock flattery from going to your…
Wallis Simpson, the Woman Who Could Not Be Queen
Wallis Simpson was born as Bessie Wallis Warfield in June of 1896. Her parents had been married only seven months previously, undoubtedly due to her impending arrival, but Wallis always insisted that they had been married the previous June.…
The Other Washington Monument | Alice Roosevelt, Theodore’s Wild Child
Presidential daughters have always been scrutinised by the American press. Some have served as trusted advisors – we see Ivanka Trump in this role. Others have caused embarrassment – the Bush twins immediately come to mind. Cited for…
Insertions Downstairs | J.P. Donleavy’s The Ginger Man
Since first hitting the shelves in 1955, J.P Donleavy's cult classic The Ginger Man has sold more than 40 million copies. The hedonistic tale of American student Sebastian Dangerfield in Dublin city during the 1940's, it was described by…
Baroness Moura Budberg, Russian Spy and Fantasist
Like most people involved in espionage, Moura Budberg was largely a creature of her own invention. She spent most of her life shrouded in lies, but she knew the trick to getting people to believe them. It wasn’t just “a kernel of truth”, as…
Ernest Kavanagh | Ireland’s Revolutionary Caricaturist
Ernest Kavanagh was someone who contributed artistically to the era of revolution in Ireland but in our history he has unfortunately been lost among names such as Pearse and Connolly.
Born in Dublin city in 1884, young Ernest received…
Henry Prince and John Smyth-Pigott, Agapemonite Messiahs
Henry Prince was born in 1811 in the city of Bath. His family were well off enough to own property in Jamaica - property which included slaves, as his mother was compensated when slavery was abolished there. His father died when he was…
Longford’s Queen of Crooks | Chicago May, Blackmail Extraordinaire
It was on St Stephens day 1870 when Mary Anne Duignan was born to Thomas Duignan and Mary Elizabeth Brady in Edenmore, Ballinamuck. The eldest of two daughters and three sons, she grew up in comfortable surroundings on a 140 acre farm in…
Blood on the Leaves |3| The Innovative Errors of Horst Herold
Previously: The Abduction of Hanns Martin Schleyer
It was March 1982 and West Germany had not experienced a single political assassination or high-profile kidnapping in almost four and a half years. Elizabeth Pond, a correspondent for…
Bad Science and Aryan Physics | Galileo, Johannes Stark and Philipp Lenard
Have you heard the one about the bad scientists who called the good scientists’ science bad science? Like so many historical goings-on recorded since recording became a thing, it is just one more preposterous example of bringing ad hominem…