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Gerald Hamilton
Gerald Bernard Francis Hamilton (1 November 1890 – 9 June 1970) was a British memoirist, critic and internationalist known as "the wickedest man in Europe".''The Man Who Was Norris: The life of Gerald Hamilton'', Tom Cullen, Daedalus, 2014. Hamilton counted among his friends Winston Churchill, Robin Maugham, Tallulah Bankhead and Christopher Isherwood, who wrote of Hamilton's remarkable personality and frequently shady dealings in his literary memoir ''Christopher and His Kind''. Early life Born Gerald Frank Hamilton Souter in Shanghai on 1 November 1890, he was educated at Lambrook preparatory and Rugby School in England. Hamilton's father, Frank Thomas Edward Souter (1863–1941), was a businessman of Scottish descent with commercial interests in China, and his mother, Edith Minnie, ''née'' Holliday (1860–1890), was English. Hamilton converted to Roman Catholicism. He hinted that his lineage was "faintly ducal", but it is unknown if he was directly related to anyone wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five UK Parliament constituency, constituencies. Ideologically an Economic liberalism, economic liberal and British Empire, imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to Spencer family, a wealthy, aristocratic family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British Raj, Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willi Münzenberg
Wilhelm "Willi" Münzenberg (14 August 1889, Erfurt, Germany – June 1940, Saint-Marcellin, France) was a German Communist political activist and publisher. Münzenberg was the first head of the Young Communist International in 1919–20 and established the famine-relief and propaganda organization Workers International Relief in 1921. He was a leading propagandist for the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during the Weimar Era, but later grew disenchanted with the USSR due to Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s. Condemned by Stalin to be purged and arrested for treason,Koch, Stephen, ''Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Münzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals'', New York: Enigma Books (2004), Revised Edition, pp. 14, 20, 77, 90–91, 333, 362 Münzenberg left the KPD and in Paris became a leader of the German émigré anti-fascism and anti-Stalinist community until forced to flee the Nazi advance into France in 1940. Arrested and imprisoned by the Daladier government in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Obfuscation
Obfuscation is the obscuring of the intended meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language. The obfuscation might be either unintentional or intentional (although intent usually is connoted), and is accomplished with circumlocution (talking around the subject), the use of jargon (technical language of a profession), and the use of an argot (ingroup language) of limited communicative value to outsiders. In expository writing, unintentional obfuscation usually occurs in draft documents, at the beginning of composition; such obfuscation is illuminated with critical thinking and editorial revision, either by the writer or by an editor. Etymologically, the word ''obfuscation'' derives from the Latin , from ''obfuscāre'' (to darken); synonyms include the words beclouding and abstrusity. Medical Doctors are faulted for using jargon to conceal unpleasant facts from a patient; the American author and physicia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mr Norris Changes Trains
''Mr Norris Changes Trains'' (published in the United States as ''The Last of Mr. Norris'') is a 1935 novel by the British writer Christopher Isherwood. It is frequently included with ''Goodbye to Berlin'', another Isherwood novel, in a single volume, ''The Berlin Stories''. Inspiration for the novel was drawn from Isherwood's experiences as an expatriate living in Berlin during the early 1930s, and the character of Mr Norris is based on Gerald Hamilton. In 1985 the actor David March won a Radio Academy Award for Best Radio Actor for his performance in a dramatisation of the novel for BBC Radio 4. Isherwood began work on a much larger work he called ''The Lost'' before paring down its story and characters to focus on Norris. The book was critically and popularly acclaimed but years after its publication Isherwood denounced it as shallow and dishonest. Plot summary The novel follows the movements of William Bradshaw, its narrator, who meets a nervous-looking man named Arth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The Daily Telegraph'' newspaper, via Press Holdings. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture. It is politically conservative. Alongside columns and features on current affairs, the magazine also contains arts pages on books, music, opera, film and TV reviews. Editorship of ''The Spectator'' has often been a step on the ladder to high office in the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. Past editors include Boris Johnson (1999–2005) and other former cabinet members Ian Gilmour (1954–1959), Iain Macleod (1963–1965), and Nigel Lawson (1966–1970). Since 2009, the magazine's editor has been journalist Fraser Nelson. ''The Spectator Australia'' offers 12 pages on Australian politics and affairs as well as the full UK maga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Security
National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military attack, national security is widely understood to include also non-military dimensions, including the security from terrorism, minimization of crime, economic security, energy security, environmental security, food security, and cyber-security. Similarly, national security risks include, in addition to the actions of other nation states, action by violent non-state actors, by narcotic cartels, and by multinational corporations, and also the effects of natural disasters. Governments rely on a range of measures, including political, economic, and military power, as well as diplomacy, to safeguard the security of a nation state. They may also act to build the conditions of security regionally and internationally by reducing transnational caus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gross Indecency
Gross indecency is a crime in some parts of the English-speaking world, originally used to criminalize sexual activity between men that fell short of sodomy, which required penetration. The term was first used in British law in a statute of the British Parliament in 1885 and was carried forward in other statutes throughout the British Empire. The offence was never actually defined in any of the statutes which used it, which left the scope of the offence to be defined by court decisions. History The term ''gross indecency'' was first used in the Labouchere Amendment (section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885), which criminalized sexual acts between men, including those done in private. Gross indecency statutes consequently spread throughout the British Empire. Canada adopted the term in section 178 of the Criminal Code in 1892. The term was also used in the Criminal Code (sections 206 (1906, 1927), 149 (1953–1954), 157 (1970), 161 (1985)) as well as in the Criminal Law ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century. A prolific writer, he published widely over the course of his life. Born to a wealthy family in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, Crowley rejected his parents' fundamentalist Christian Plymouth Brethren faith to pursue an interest in Western esotericism. He was educated at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, where he focused his attentions on mountaineering and poetry, resulting in several publications. Some biographers allege that here he was recruited into a British intelligence agency, further suggesting that he remained a spy throughout his life. In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where he was trained i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Branch (Metropolitan Police)
Special Branch was a unit in the Metropolitan Police in London, formed as a counter-terrorism unit in 1883 and merged with another unit to form Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) in 2006. It maintained contact with the Security Service and had responsibility for, among other things, personal protection of (non-royal) VIPs and performing the role of examining officer at designated ports and airports, as prescribed by the Terrorism Act 2000. History In response to the escalating terror campaign in Britain carried out by the militant Irish Fenians in the 1880s, the Home Secretary Sir William Harcourt established the first counter-terrorism unit ever in 1883, named Special Irish Branch, to combat Irish republican terrorism through infiltration and subversion. It initially formed a section of the Criminal Investigation Department within the London Metropolitan Police. Harcourt envisioned a permanent unit dedicated to the prevention of politically motivated violence through the use o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. Its members founded the revolutionary Irish Republic and its parliament, the First Dáil, during the Irish War of Independence. The party split in the aftermath of the Irish Civil War, giving rise to the two traditionally dominant parties of southern Irish politics: Fianna Fáil, and Cumann na nGaedheal (which became Fine Gael). For several decades the remaining Sinn Féin organisation was small without parliamentary representation. Another split in 1970 at the start of the Troubles led to the Sinn Féin of today, with the other faction eventually becoming the Workers' Party. During the Troubles, Sinn Féin was associated with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). For most of that conflict, there were broadcasting bans on Si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Intelligence Agencies
The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and domestic intelligence, providing military intelligence, and performing espionage and counter-espionage. Their intelligence assessments contribute to the conduct of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom, maintaining the national security of the United Kingdom, military planning and law enforcement in the United Kingdom. The four main agencies are the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6), the Security Service (MI5), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and Defence Intelligence (DI). The history of the organisations dates back to the 19th century. The decryption of the Zimmermann Telegram in 1917 was described as the most significant intelligence triumph for Britain during World War I, and one of the earliest occasions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friends Of Soviet Russia
The Friends of Soviet Russia (FSR) was formally established in the United States on August 9, 1921 as an offshoot of the American Labor Alliance for Trade Relations with Soviet Russia (ALA). It was launched as a "mass organization" dedicated to raising funds for the relief of the extreme famine that swept Soviet Russia in 1921, both in terms of food and clothing for immediate amelioration of the crisis and agricultural tools and equipment for the reconstruction of Soviet agriculture. From 1927 the organization was known as the Friends of the Soviet Union (FSU) and was the American national affiliate of a new international authority known as the International Association of Friends of the Soviet Union. Organizational History Early work The Friends of Soviet Russia proved successful in raising funds for Russian relief, generating about $750,000 and clothing worth an additional $300,000 during the first 14 months of its existence. The funds were raised transparently, with the name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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