I received email at my home email address from someone named George Thomas Kurian inviting me to join something called The Forum on History and Literature. The attachment he sent is unreadable and a Google search turns up no biographical information about him or the forum; only a list of compilations he has had something to do with.
Has anyone else received similar email or ever heard of him? I don’t know whether to treat this email as spam or as an honest inquiry.
A friend and I were discussing World War I over breakfast last week. World War I because that’s what the first few weeks of Sr. Seminar have been about. I was trying to remember the name of the German that modified the , quite possibly changing the outcome of the war.
“Did they shoot that guy?” my friend asked. Because, as we further discussed this point, we began to feel that perhaps if the Schlieffen Plan had succeeded, Hitler would have remained in the Army, become a painter of modest means and maybe, just maybe World War II wouldn’t have come about.
That guy who began to have doubts about the efficacy of the Schlieffen Plan was Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. Further, Moltke gave Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria some latitude in how the Sixth Army would approach the French.
Historians still argue over Moltke’s actions and how much impact his wavering attitude had on the outcome of the war.
The answer to my friend’s question is, “No. They didn’t shoot that guy. Moltke’s health gave way in 1914 and he died in 1916.”
NOTE: I highly recommend Modris Ecksteins’ Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age for a different look at the war. Ecksteins book is a look at the cultural history and the tension of modernity vs. established values using the Ballet Russes’ presentation of Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring as a framework. It is a complex and chewy read, but worth the time if you’re interested in a different view of the war.
Liena Vayzman has great advice for writing. Her article applies specifically to Dissertation writing but it really does apply to any kind of writing.
You have a stack of research materials, a nebulous yet promising topic, and a looming deadline. Now, how do you actually write?
That’s a question which plagues all of us. Okay, I can’t speak for you or you or you over there but I can speak for me; and there are times when I really think I am all tapped out or have no clue where to get started.
in the December, 2006 issue of from . Read it, bookmark it, refer to it often, breathe.