If history is deprived of the Truth, we are left with nothing but an idle, unprofitable tale
What follows is a personal interpretation and translation of the famed Chinese poem 长恨歌，or The Song of Everlasting Regret, by the poet 白居易. Written in the ninth century, it depicts the tragic love story between an emperor and his concubine and is renowned for its literary flourish and narrative flow. This article covers the first …
Recently, I watched the ‘Last Emperor’, famously directed by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1987, winning nine Academy Awards for its screenplay and performance. It was a fuzzy feeling seeing the imposing Forbidden City during the last years of the Qing Dynasty – guarded by rows of armoured imperial guards – in contrast with the desolate and …
Typically, when we think of a board game, our minds could wander off in many different directions. Perhaps it's that dusty board of monopoly you haven’t played since you were a kid. Perhaps you think of “Articulate!” a quick combination of wit and creativity, or maybe it's that green scrabble board. But for many young …
The Ancient World can be construed as a narrative of singularities, with globe-spanning empires founded upon the fabled bounties of the Fertile Crescent dominating the story. The advent of agricultural technology and the arrival of the Roman Climate Optimum had endowed the men and women of the Oecumene with the incentives to coalesce into three …
Continue reading French Revolution Part 3: The World of 1700s
Part 1: https://venividiveritas.com/2023/01/24/queen-of-cities-a-fictional-tour-of-constantinople-in-540-ad/ Part 2: https://venividiveritas.com/2023/02/22/the-queen-of-cities-part-2-house-of-god/ Without Ecritius’s presence, I was naked and alone in the grand halls of Imperator Caesar Justinianus Augustus. The courtiers, each of them garbed in silk so fine I could see the pale hue of their skin, were as sullen and silent as mosaic saints as they led me past …
Continue reading The Queen of Cities Part 3: The House of Man
The study of history is distinguished from that of natural sciences and mathematics by two key differences: The basis of knowledge and evidence upon which the discipline of history is constructed is by nature polluted by political and ecclesiastical agendas, prejudices, biases, and unreliable sources. This churning sea of lies and rumours is the unknowable …
Every society can be likened to a swirling whirlpool of conflicting interests: a volatile amalgamation of disparate constituencies operating under a largely uniform set of values which are defined as ideology, faith, morality, or tradition. Each interest group is a current of its own, driven by a distinct set of demands and agendas, thus it …
Continue reading French Revolution Part 2: The Political Theory of Revolution
The eighteenth century was a time of grave change for the men and women of Western Europe. Their ancestors had descended upon the fertile soil of Gaul, Britannia, Germania, Hispania, and Italia as barbarian hordes overrunning the fraying borders of the Roman Empire in search of a better life: a life free from the relentless …
Continue reading French Revolution Part 1: Setting the Stage
When we think of a pandemic, our minds go straight to something along the lines of “widespread global disease that causes harm”. Naturally, it isn’t something we want to be omnipresent in our daily lives; it has caused millions of cases of mortality and morbidity, spiked unemployment rates in many countries, and pushed many countries, …
Continue reading The Shift in Global Perspective: Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic.
In the previous post, I examined the economical impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, and speculated some future implications that the pandemic may continue to bring. Although most statistics on economic growth pose numerous negative consequences, a silver lining of the pandemic can be seen when we examine the technology that was used and/or created in …
Continue reading The Role of Technology in the Post-Pandemic Global Recovery
Veni Vidi Veritatem 