Year: 2021
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Flowers of the Mind 15
Elena Shvarts, New Jerusalem Monastery, Patriarch Nikon and the Resurrection of religious life in Russia. A definition of empire. Olga Tokarczuk and the Books of Jacob. Please consider purchasing my collected poems, Gathering Flowers of the Mind, and listening to my podcast, The Burning Archive. Best wishes for renewal in the New Year.
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Flowers of the Mind 14
Journalists draft history? The public sphere, Habermas and the post-democratic society. Emmanuel Todd on the tasks ahead for advanced societies. History as a moral art that encounters the living past in an infinite conversation.
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Podcast 32. This Archive is For the Players
In this playful episode of The Burning Archive, special guest and recent Monash University graduate, Isaac Rich poses six questions about history drawn from his scholarship of gaming. The question is – will the Burning Archive be prepared?
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Flowers of the Mind 13
Dominic Lieven, Napoleon vs Russia, and the eastward expansion of NATO. The Hundred Years Cold War. Mary Sarotte, Not One Inch, James Baker and Mikhail Gorbachev. Totalitarianism and public health.
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Podcast 31 – Seven Basic Plots vs 1001 Nights of Stories
This episode of The Burning Archive examines tragedy and comedy, the story of the story of stories, the seven basic plots, and how even historians write their histories with these plots. But can the inventiveness of great storytellers really be limited to seven basic plots. Will Scheherazade outwit, outlast and outplay the critics?
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Podcast # 30 – Three Faiths. One Holy Land.
Podcast 30 of the Burning Archive discusses the claims of Judaism, Christianity and Islam on the State of Israel and the Universal City of Jerusalem.
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Flowers of the Mind 12
Omricon, fear and crowd psychology. Jay Bhattacharya and the catastrophic errors of public health. Grieving memories of Stuart Macintyre. Szymborska on what matters. Paul Kingsnorth on fear, tyranny and the vaccine wars. Elena Shvarts on both hopelessness and hope.
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Flowers of the Mind 11
Evil triads and power. Will the West decouple from America? Mattias Desmet and mass formation psychosis. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Troubadors and Pound’s Cantos.
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Flowers of the Mind 10
Robert Lowell on George Santayana. The silence of the doctors and the rule of public health. Virus gonna virus. Jordan B. Peterson on saying no to tyranny. The exposure of the RussiaGate and Steele dossier hoax. On prophecy. Bhagavad Gita and the sacrifice of the soul in the fire of the Gods.
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Podcast 28 & 29 – The Crusades, Parts I and II
What were the crusades and how did they give birth to modern European nations? What made the crusaders and their opponents believe faith justified violence, that they fought a just war, a holy war, a jihad?
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Podcast 27 – Silk Worms. Silk Trade. Silk Roads.
Episode 27 of the Burning Archive podcast asks: How did the Byzantine Empire acquire the secrets of silk production from China, and what does it tell us about the history of silk, the diffusion of silk trade across the world, and the Silk Roads of Eurasia?
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Flowers of the Mind 9.
The escapades of the American Imperial War Faction in the Black Sea. Corruption investigation in Victoria, political patronage, branch stacking, Red Shirts and political decay. Rene Girard on scapegoating. Tennyson’s temper of heroic hearts. Regenerated tradition.
The Burning Archive 