The Portuguese also weathered Europe's longest dictatorship under twentieth-century ruler Antonio Salazar.Ī 1974 military coup, called the Carnation Revolution, placed the Portuguese at the centre of Cold War attentions. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake was one of Europe's greatest natural disasters, strongly influencing continental thought and heralding Portugal's extended decline. Yet it is an inconspicuous and largely overlooked country on the continent's south-west rim.In the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Age of Discovery the Portuguese led Europe out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic and they brought Asia and Europe together.Įvidence of their one-time four-continent empire can still be felt, not least in the Portuguese language which is spoken by more than 220 million people from Brazil, across parts of Africa to Asia.Analyzing present-day society and culture, The Portuguese also considers the nation's often tumultuous past. Portugal is an established member of the European Union, one of the founders of the euro currency and a founder member of NATO.
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Reynolds delivers a sprawling tale that never loses its human touch, we’re always reminded of the cost of the adventure Miguel finds himself on, and what he loses of himself along the way. When he recovers a woman from a ship that has entered the system, she blackmails him and launches him on a journey that he is not prepared for. We join Miguel and his family on a remote, unwelcoming world, where a small cluster of humanity is hiding from the Inhibtors, also known as wolves, who have pushed us back into caves, wiping us out wherever they find us, detecting our technology, and destroying us. And I loved that, you simply buckle in for Reynolds’ tale, and let him weave the story around you. This one took me to a lot of fun places, and it pleasantly surprised me, because the blurb on the back of the book, the tease, or hook, if you will, didn’t venture past anything that happened in the first fifty odd pages. The novel, though well able to stand on its own, is best enjoyed in the company of the other Revelation Space novels because you recognize places, names, and begin to see how everything all ties together. And once again, he proves himself not only a solid storyteller, but able to constantly meld high space opera with hard-edged sci-fi. Orbit Books was kind enough to invite me back to Revelation Space with Alastair Reynolds’ latest novel set in that far flung universe. It is harrowing and it made me extremely emotional and it even made me cry. Louise Milligan writes from the perspective of a female journalist who has helped victims talk about their assaults in the media through her journalistic work, as well as her own experiences with having to participate in some of these trials as a first complaint witness. I recently read Louise Milligan’s book Witness: An Investigation into the Brutal Cost of Seeking Justice which centres on Australian sexual assault trials in the courts. I think this book is great and is definitely important, but also remember to treat yourself with kindness if you are reading it. It contains a lot of discussions about sexual assault and could be distressing for people. Hand holding Louise Milligan’s book Witness: An Investigation into the Brutal Cost of Seeking Justice.ĬONTENT WARNING: This book is heavy. Auden once remarked, is bad for the character. Every teaching institution will have its department of cultural studies, an ox not to be gored, and an aesthetic underground will flourish, restoring something of the romance of reading. Not a moment passes these days without fresh rushes of academic lemmings off the cliffs they proclaim the political responsibilities of the critic, but eventually all this moralizing will subside. Overpopulation, Malthusian repletion, is the authentic context for canonical anxieties. Mallarme’s grand line -“the flesh is sad, alas, and I have read all the books”- has become a hyperbole. Who reads must choose, since there is literally not enough time to read everything, even if one does nothing but read. ORIGINALLY THE CANON meant the choice of books in our teaching institutions, and despite the recent politics of multiculturalism, the Canon’s true question remains: What shall the individual who still desires to read attempt to read, this late in history? The Biblical three-score years and ten no longer suffice to read more than a selection of the great writers in what can be called the Western tradition, let alone in all the world’s traditions. |