Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Victoria, as sovereign, ruled one in four human beings, altogether some 500 million people, and her navy commanded the sea.
Wade Davis • Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest
History was unfolding in Asia as well as Europe. In China, popular protests against the Qing dynasty, which had failed to modernize China or push back against foreign encroachments on Chinese sovereignty, led to its toppling in 1912, ending some two thousand years of imperial rule. Chinese Nationalists (a non-Communist movement inclined toward auth
... See moreRichard Haass • The World
When Albizu was elected as one of the club’s two vice presidents in 1914, the other vice president was T. V. Soong, later reputed to be the world’s richest man. One of Soong’s sisters was about to marry Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the Chinese revolution. Another would marry Chiang Kai-shek, head of the Republic of China (first on the mainland, then
... See moreDaniel Immerwahr • How to Hide an Empire
the ancient Chinese system as effective in producing “educated acquiescence.”
Peter Hessler • Other Rivers
The whole nation slid into doublespeak. Words became divorced from reality, responsibility, and people’s real thoughts. Lies were told with ease because words had lost their meanings—and had ceased to be taken seriously by others.