Marsaxlokk-Jabal Ali; On Military Logistics in the Age of Philip II 4 February 2015 What becomes clear in reading Braudel’s vol II about war-making is the extent to which your martial power really depends on your economic ability to supply the garrisons intended to act as your line of defence. His fascinating discussion of the […]
How will I ever be able to return to life, “circumspect life” in Melville’s words, after that, the “delirious throb” of this research adventure? In his gorgeous opening to Moby Dick, Melville writes, “whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; […] then, I account it high time to get to sea as […]
Stand-Up Beer Hall Walter Benjamin Sailors seldom come ashore ; service on the high seas is a holiday by comparison with the labour in harbours, where loading and unloading must often be done day and night. When a gang is then given a few hours’ shore-leave it is already dark. At best the cathedral looms like a dark promontory […]
I have written lovingly of London’s canals before. I just want to briefly write out something else I have discovered which ties in nicely with the whole infrastructure thing. Today I spent an hour or so in the London Canal Museum. Not really a particularly interesting museum. Its location is stunning, and the ice-storage space […]
Associated Press reports that jets belonging to the Libyan government bombed a Greek-owned tanker, killing two crew members: A military spokesman for Libya’s internationally recognised government says its fighter jets bombed a Greek-owned tanker ship because it had no prior clearance to enter an eastern port and acted “suspiciously”. Spokesman Ahmed al-Mesmari said the jets […]
In the last two weeks, two ships filled to the brim with hundreds of Syrian refugees have been brought in to Italian ports. The ships seem to have left Eastern Mediterranean, and sailed parallel to the Turkish coast, picking up most passengers from Mersin or other ports in Turkey, and arriving in Greek waters, heading […]
I am reading two books simultaneously through both of which trains rattle and whistle and snake… But which in some ways are as different as they can be. Bill Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis is a panoramic history of the making of Chicago in the 19th century; it is a work of virtuoso research and of historical imagination. It is […]
‘[Golden Dawn] created battalions against their political opponents, and then they rented them out, to whoever wanted to rent them,” he told Channel 4 News. In one of the most important cases, a network of businessmen active in the shipping industry allegedly involved Golden Dawn in their continuing struggle against the stubborn unions which wouldn’t accept […]
Last week, huge protests took place in Brussels, with the trade unions reporting some 130,000-150,000 people showing up; and major clashes with the police. The protests in fact have been going on for some time now. And in the April protests, “hundreds of marchers adorned in the orange bibs of the BTB-ABVV docker’s union from Antwerp […]
I have already written about ships as workplaces, and of workers held captive on ships. Now, the NY Times reports on a massive floating refinery which is going to look for fossil fuels in the Indian Ocean. The ship is HUGE: More than 530 yards long and 80 yards wide, it was constructed with 260,000 […]
