History

NIKOS MOTTAS—In Khrushchev Lied, Professor Furr deals with the speech that arguably exerted the greatest political influence in the 20th century, namely, the notorious “Secret Speech” delivered by Nikita Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The significance of this speech lies in the fact that it actually became the basis for the launch of a huge campaign of slander, both of Joseph Stalin, and of the cause of socialism-communism more broadly.

• It is in this context we should understand the arrival of the postwar order in Germany and what befalls the Federal Republic as we speak. Germans were not made for the Cold War and its West–East binaries, destructive as these were to the remarkable release of human aspiration that followed the 1945 victories. Defeated Germany was among Washington’s pivotal clients as it turned against Moscow, so recently its ally, and set out to establish America’s global primacy. This has served Germany and Germans very badly. 

ALEX LANTIER—It is difficult to understand at this point how Notre-Dame cathedral could have found itself defenseless in the face of this type of fire. The vulnerability of French cathedral spires and roofs to fire has been well known for many centuries, with the cathedrals of Reims and Chartres having suffered major fires of this type in 1481 and 1506, respectively.Notre-Dame was spared major fires not only during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, but also during the French Revolution and the Paris Commune, when Parisian workers attacked the structure as they rose up against the Church, and also during the two world wars of the 20th century.Despite all the vast technological advances that humanity has made in the 21st century, it is in this century that the famous cathedral was ravaged by fire. Serious questions are posed, with budgets in France and across Europe entirely turned to austerity and tax cuts for the rich, as to whether the allocation of more money on the renovation of Notre-Dame and its fire security could have averted or at least contained a blaze that ended up devastating the entire building.

MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY—The Korean War (1950-1953) was the first major military operation  undertaken by the US in the wake of  World War II,  launched at the very outset of  what was euphemistically called “The Cold War”. In many respects it was a continuation of World War II, whereby Korean lands under Japanese colonial occupation were, from one day to the next, handed over to a new colonial power, the United States of America. At the Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945), the US and the Soviet Union agreed to dividing Korea, along the 38th parallel. There was no “Liberation” of Korea following the entry of US forces. Quite the opposite.

For decades, archaeologists have struggled to decode unusual inscriptions found on stelae near the base of the Tikal royal palace. In her groundbreaking new translation, Dr. Hoshi Sato has revealed them to include some of the world’s earliest animal welfare laws.