Feynman, a complicated legacy

Ethan Siegel is the author of the “Starts with a Bang” newsletter on BigThink, which is a great read and I recommend it to everyone interested in the latest developments in Astronomy, but also in Physics in general. He is also a facebook friend. In his Nov 1st newsletter Ethan addresses a question from one of his readers, which ends with: “It seems to me that you have a somewhat ambivalent relationship with R. Feynman. Is there a deeper reason for this?”. Ethan here gives a very detailed answer acknowledging Feynman’s scientific accomplishments before going on to highlight some of Feynman’s more controversial character aspects, and I certainly agree with his conclusion that “We can rightfully laud [Feynman] for his great accomplishments while still being critical of his unacceptable behaviors, and I would argue we have an obligation to share the full truth about Feynman, both the physicist and the human being, with subsequent generations of scientists and science-literate citizens.” But after reading the whole article, and not finding anything specific I could disagree with, I was left with a feeling that something was missing, and it took me a while to fully conceptualise the origins of my discomfort and put it down to words.

Feynman was born in 1918, was mostly active during the 40s to the 60s, and died in 1988 when he was 69 years old. He was successfully treated for abdominal cancer in 1980, but then the cancer came back with a vengeance in 1988, at which point it had gotten so bad that Feynman refused treatment. In many ways his social views were a product of his time, yet his patterns of behaviour were not predictably consistent. Ethan’s article does a good job of pointing out the negatives, when viewed anachronistically through a modern lens, but in leaving out the aspects of Feynman’s character that made him “curious”, ends up with an incomplete picture of who Feynman really was as a person.

Fundamentally, Feynman was an iconoclast, and it is through this lens that his character contradictions can be reconciled. He was also a prankster with  little regard for authority. While working for the Manhattan project, he famously amused himself by breaking into secure safes containing nuclear secrets—not to undermine the project, but to expose how lax security was. Sometimes he would even leave notes in the safes, like “I borrowed document no. LA4312–Feynman the safecracker.” He loved the arts and was an avid bongo player who also learned to paint for fun (even holding an exhibition under a pseudonym), occasionally having intense discussions about art vs. science with his artist/mentor/friend Jirayr “Jerry” Zorthian (check out the Ode to a Flower monologue). An older contemporary colleague of his from Caltech once told me that Feynman could sometimes be found smoking weed in the Professor’s common room, much to the chagrin of everyone else. He was also a regular at the local strip club, and knew all the girls working there. He would pick up an orange juice from the bar (by that time he wasn’t a big fan of alcohol), together with a bunch of napkins or place mats, and he would watch the show or just sit there and think, scribbling down equations on the napkins, alone or with company. This was the kind of environment he felt more at ease in and he actually did quite a number of his calculations in that place. When the county tried to close the place down on account of “uncovered breasts”, he was the bar’s only regular customer willing to come forward and testify publicly in court in defense of the bar. 

Such stories reveal Feynman as a gadfly—a horsefly, if you will—who delighted in seeing how the social and academic order would reconfigure itself when challenged. He cared little for social norms or accolades and famously eschewed honorary degrees and pomp. His devotion was to truth, inquiry, and the freedom to explore without inhibition.

Ethan’s article rightly discusses the biases prevalent in academia during Feynman’s time (and later) and how he sometimes mirrored those biases. Like most people of his time, it doesn’t seem like Feynman had carefully thought through the harmful implications of maintaining these problematic attitudes. Take, for example, a talk he gave in 1966 at the National Science Teachers Association. The topic he was asked to talk about was “What is Science?”, a title that he didn’t really like. It is a fantastic talk and I strongly encourage everyone to read the transcript, but it is also a product of its time. At some point during this talk Feynman says the following: 

“I listened to a conversation between two girls, and one was explaining that if you want to make a straight line, you see, you go over a certain number to the right for each row you go up–that is, if you go over each time the same amount when you go up a row, you make a straight line–a deep principle of analytic geometry! It went on. I was rather amazed. I didn’t realize the female mind was capable of understanding analytic geometry. She went on and said, “Suppose you have another line coming in from the other side, and you want to figure out where they are going to intersect.  Suppose on one line you go over two to the right for every one you go up, and the other line goes over three to the right for every one that it goes up, and they start twenty steps apart,” etc.–I was flabbergasted.  She figured out where the intersection was. It turned out that one girl was explaining to the other how to knit argyle socks.“ 

This passage clearly comes across as sexist, reflecting the prevalent attitudes of that time. However, what is more revealing about how Feynman thought, is what comes after it. Feynman doesn’t end there, but continues the thought in this fashion: “I, therefore, did learn a lesson: The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry. Those people who have for years been insisting (in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary) that the male and female are equally capable of rational thought may have something. The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind.” 

Feynman here seems to acknowledge the possibility that systemic issues, rather than innate differences, limited women’s participation in science. But he offers no solution to this problem and moves back to his main topic. He does not own it as his problem to solve for the whole of the country. Society for him is one thing, the scientific enterprise another, and he is primarily interested in the latter. 

Richard Feynman also had a younger sister, Joan. Although they were separated by nine years, Joan and Richard were close, as Joan was also very curious about how the world worked. Their mother was a sophisticated woman who had marched for women’s suffrage in her youth, but believed that women lacked the capacity to understand maths and physics. Despite that negative attitude at home, the young Richard encouraged Joan’s interest in science. From a very young age, he would train her to solve simple math problems and rewarded each correct answer by letting her tug on his hair while he made funny faces. By the time she was 5, Richard was hiring her for 2 cents a week to assist him in the electronics lab he’d built in his room. Joan grew up to become an astrophysicist, crediting her brother’s mentorship as a key influence. In his later years, Richard became acutely aware of the discrimination women faced in physics, because he saw how it affected his sister. For her part, Joan Feynman was awarded NASA’s Exceptional Science Achievement medal in 2002, for her continued support and encouragement for women to persevere and make their marks in science.

Feynman’s first marriage, to Arline Greenbaum, adds another layer of complexity. They were high-school sweethearts and by all accounts their love was profound and marked by mutual respect. Feynman wrote her heartfelt letters that revealed his deep admiration for her intellect and spirit. Arline was sick for a long time, even before their marriage, and eventually died of tuberculosis in 1945, while Richard was working on the Manhattan project. When she was near death, he rushed from Los Alamos to be by her side. You can read here a remarkable letter he wrote two years after Arlene’s death, where he pours out his heart. The letter was discovered in a stash of old letters by Feynman’s biographer James Gleick.

Richard Feynman got married again in 1952 to Mary Louise Bell. This second marriage was difficult, strained by differences in temperament and lifestyle choices, and ended in divorce. Mary had very conservative views and they quarrelled often. She was so fed up with his obsession with calculus and physics and reported that on several occasions, when she disturbed his calculations, which he would sometimes even do while he was lying in bed at night, or his bongo playing, he would fly into a rage. She filed for divorce in 1956. His third marriage, to Gweneth Howarth, who shared his enthusiasm for travelling and playfulness, was far more harmonious.

In the book “What do YOU care about what other people think?” Feynman recalls an incident where feminist protesters (led by a man, ironically) entered a hall and picketed a lecture he was about to make in San Francisco, holding up placards and handing out leaflets calling him a "sexist pig". As soon as he got up to speak, some of the protesters marched to the front of the lecture hall and, holding their placards signs high, started chanting “Feynman sexist pig!”. Instead of reacting defensively, Feynman addressed the protesters saying: “Perhaps, after all, it is good that you came. For women do indeed suffer from prejudice and discrimination in Physics, and your presence here today serves to remind us of these difficulties and the need to remedy them”.

Feynman’s attitudes certainly weren’t those of a consistent advocate for gender equality, as we might expect today, but they weren’t wholly regressive either. The idea of dismantling systemic barriers wasn’t part of his worldview, but he was not resistant to change and was willing to support those who defied convention.

Criticisms of Feynman’s legacy through the lens of presentism risks overlooking the full complexity of his character and how progressive some of his views were for his time. He was a complicated individual, whose brilliance was tempered by human imperfections.

He achieved remarkable things in his lifetime and inspired many physicists that came after him, both male and female. 

As with every figure who has left a mark on the landscape of history, fairness requires that we should be honest about who he was, acknowledging both his achievements and flaws, while considering the context of his time. His legacy cannot be flattened into an uncomplicated hero or villain narrative. 

Perhaps Feynman's most enduring legacy is to remind us that progress is born from questioning, curiosity, and the willingness to defy convention --all driven by the joy of discovery. To reduce such a complicated life to binary judgments, to refuse to celebrate it, pointing out warts and all, would be to forget why we study these figures at all—to question, to learn, and to grow.

Trippy history of the world.

Galileo Figaro Magnifico

Επιστολή του Γαλιλαίου του 1610 στην οποία αναφέρει ότι ανακάλυψε ότι ο πλανήτης Δίας περιφέρεται απο τέσσερις δορυφόρους τους οποίους ονόμασε Ιώ, Ευρώπη, Γανυμήδη και Καλλιστώ. Προς το τέλος της επιστολής έχει κάνει και ένα σχέδιο του Δία με τα τέσσερα φεγγάρια του.

Αυτή του η ανακάλυψη κατακερμάτισε την τότε επικρατούσα ιδέα οτι τα πάντα στο σύμπαν περιφέρονται γύρω απ'τη Γή. (Ολίγον τί αλλαζονική άποψη θα μου πείτε αλλα δέ βαριέσαι. 1600 ήταν αυτό, ακόμα ψήνανε μαγισσές στα κάρβουνα με πατάτες.) Το τί επακολούθησε έμεινε στην ιστορία.

Σήμερα ξέρουμε οτι ο Δίας δέν έχει μόνο τέσσερα φεγγάρια αλλά τουλάχιστον 50 και βάλε.

Macedonia - The naming dispute in context

The Balkan region of Macedonia today is a region that includes:
* The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), a current state, also referred to as the Republic of Macedonia.
* Macedonia (Greece) a region of Greece, subdivided into three administrative districts: - West Macedonia - Central Macedonia - East Macedonia and Thrace.
* Pirin Macedonia, an unofficial name for the Blagoevgrad Province, a region of Bulgaria.

Historical Macedonia, Macedon or Macedonia (Greek: Μακεδονία) was the name of a kingdom in the northern-most part of ancient Greece, bordered by the kingdom of Epirus to the west and the region of Thrace to the east (Britannica). For a brief period it became the most powerful state in the ancient Near East after Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world, inaugurating the Hellenistic period of Greek history.

The first Macedonian state emerged in the 8th or early 7th century BC under the Argead Dynasty, who allegedly migrated to the region from the southern Greek city of Argos (thus the name Argead). Their first king is recorded as Perdiccas I.

Prior to the 4th century BC, the kingdom covered a region approximately corresponding to the province of Macedonia of modern Greece. It became increasingly Atticised during this period, though prominent Athenians appear to have regarded the Macedonians as uncouth.

We must stop here for an important parenthesis. Just who were the Greeks (Hellenes)? The most popular theory is that the pro-hellenes were made up of various Pelasgic peoples (Dryopes, Kares, Leleges etc) which were later subdued and assimilated by the Greek (Hellenic) tribes. These tribes were the Achaians, Ionians, Aeolians and the Dorians. They were part of the arian tribes that migrated from eastern europe at around the 3rd millenium BC and invaded central europe and the southern balkans. Historical records indicate that these tribes shared a similar language with small idiomatic differences. Their descent came in three waves with first the Ionians, then the Aeolians and Achaians and finally the Dorians. The Dorians were a militaristic tribe and knew how to use iron while the former tribes were still in the bronze age.

Origin of the Hellenic name: The name Hellenes first appears after the Homeric times, around 800 BC. Homer calls the resident peoples of Greece Achaians, Danaei and Agreians. The name "hellenes" becomes popular much later, when the city states had to cooperate to face the Persian invasions, and when Alexander the great expanded the borders of the Hellenistic civilization beyond the Aegean. None of those tribes came as "Greeks"; they became Greeks by being there, all around the Aegean. Language and customs identified them and wove new ties between them (J. M. Roberts The History of the world.). The language spoken today in Greece has the same alphabet and is the direct evolution of the language spoken by those ancient peoples. The name "Greeks" was the name of a Boeotian tribe that migrated to the Italian peninsula in the 8th century BCE and probably through contact with natives there brought the term to represent all Hellenes, which then established itself in Italy and in the West in general.

Who were the ancient Macedonians? There were more than 200 greek city states but we only have precise information for just a handful of them. What we do know is that they had the same customs, spoke and wrote in the same language, were allowed to participate in the Olympic games and worshiped the same gods. Macedonia was a Doric tribe and was no exception to this. However, there was one notable difference. Aristotle divided Greek governments into monarchies, oligarchies, tyrannies and democracies, and most historians still use these same divisions. In the Late Bronze Age (the Mycenean period), between about 2000 and 1200 BC, all Greek city-states seem to have been monarchies, ruled by kings. While this changed in time for many of the city states, Macedonia retained this model of governance until much later and as such was regarded as "backwards" by several other city-states, most notably the ones that had made the transition to democracy.

The weakening of Persian power was seen as an opportunity for militaristic Macedonia to expand. Philip sought status and recognition from the other city-states. When he became regent of Macedon in 359 BC he began a steady acquisition of territory at the expense of other Greek states. His ultimate argument was a powerful army which, by the end of his reign, had become the best-trained and organized military force in Greece. He first began by unifying Macedonia and later assimilated other city-states. This expansionist policy was seen as an encroachment upon the interests of Athens. Her power started to decline when previous allies seceded and placed themselves under macedonian patronage. Demosthenes, a prominent orator at the time and a devout democrat, considered the Macedonians `barbarians` and feared that the dominance of the macedonian kingdom would mean an end to democracy but others hailed Philip's vision to unify the city-states and willingly joined the Macedonian expansionist cause.

Eventually a peace treaty was signed after the Macedonian army had defeated the Athenians and Thebans in 338BC. The terms imposed were not harsh but the League that was formed had to agree to go to war with Persia under macedonian leadership. During Alexanders reign, the former democratic city-states tried to break free and become independent again, but were successfully subjugated and the city of Thebes was made an example of: It was razed to the ground and its population was enslaved (335BC). This marks the transition from the city-state period to a unified greece under macedonian leadership.

Important dates:
[323-300 BC] The death of Alexander the Great breaks into a civil war as the leading generals fight over the rule of the Empire. By 300 BC, the Empire is carved up between the dynasties of Alexander's generals Antigonus I, Ptolemy I, and Seleukis I.

[300-146 BC] Philip V (222-179 BC) clashes with Rome that has began an eastward expansion. The two "Macedonian Wars" against the Romans end up in defeat of Philip V's armies. Rome rises to power.

[395] The Roman Empire splits into Western and Eastern. The region of Macedonia falls to the Eastern (Byzantine), a multi-national empire stretching over three continents at its height.

[535] The Slavs overrun the Balkans and mix with the peoples there.

[855-886] Two brothers, Cyril and Methodius from Salonica, create the first Slavonic alphabet and promote Christianity among the Slavic peoples.

[1453] The fall of the empire's capital, Constantinople (Istanbul), to the Ottoman Turks marks the end of the Byzantine empire. The macedonian region is populated by a mix of people of different ethnic origins.

[1789] The French revolution:
The French Revolution paved the way for the modern nation-state. Across Europe radical intellectuals questioned the old monarchical order and encouraged the development of a popular nationalism committed to re-drawing the political map of the continent. The days of multi-national empires were numbered. National awakening also grew out of an intellectual reaction to the Enlightenment that emphasized national identity and developed a romantic view of cultural self-expression through nationhood. It was argued by Hegel (1770-1831) that a sense of nationality was the cement that will hold modern societies together. With most of Europe's peoples still loyal to their local province or city, nationalism was confined to small groups of intellectuals and political radicals. Nationalism came to be seen as the most effective way to create the symbols of resistance and to unite in a common cause. In the Balkans, this meant revolting against the Ottoman empire.

[1821+] After Greek independence, and while the Ottoman empire was crumbling, Greek Nationalism, exemplified by the Megali idea (the Grand Idea), focused on expansion and the forging of a national identity. As such, it was to come into conflict with similar Bulgarian and Serb nationalist expansionist plans. These plans came into conflict ever more frequently with the demographic, linguistic and cultural realities of the peninsula at the time (M. Glenny - The Balkans).

[1878-1879] The treaty of Berlin restored the region of Macedonia and Thrace to the Ottoman Empire. The great powers had now linked their imperial interests to the aspirations of the emerging balkan states. By october 1878, Edinstvo (unity), one of the new nationalist committees which had sprung up in Bulgaria was planning an uprising in the Kresna district. Two local leaders, P. Georgievski-Berovski and Stoian Karastoilov (one a Russian, the other a Pole) began to gather men and weapons. The revolution spreads quickly and focuses on the liberation of slavic regions but is crushed in just over a month by the Ottomans. The Kresna uprising posed in a violent way, and for the first time, the issue of identity of the region. This was the start of the Macedonian Question. Studies of the uprising are largely unknown outside Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and there are discrepancies between them. Historians from each side call the uprising either "Bulgarian" or "Macedonian".

At the time of the Congress of Berlin, the Macedonian region is an extraordinary pot-pourri of cultures, faiths and traditions. The four largest populations are - in no particular order - Greeks, Slavs, Albanians and Turks, although Salonika (Thessaloniki) is also the home of 50,000 Sephardic Jews. There are many other smaller communities too, like the Vlachs (who speak a language akin to romanian) and Roma gypsies. In many parts of central and western macedonia, a greek, a slav, a vlach, a turkish and an albanian dominated village exist side by side in harmony.

To summarize, the region was Europe's most enduring and complex multicultural region.
When the process of fragmentation started with the collapse of the Ottoman empire, the potential for violence and the rise of nationalism was greater there than anywhere else.

The Bulgarians' claim was based on the Slav population and the Bulgarian elite assumed all the Slavs were Bulgarians. This was not unreasonable, since the languages spoken by the slavs were very similar, but with dialectal variation. However, the Slavs of Macedonia referred to themselves as Macedonian though this was not necessarily a denial of their Bulgarian identity. On the other hand, Greeks in the region referred to themselves as both Greeks and Macedonians.

The question of the origins of the modern Macedonians (in FYROM), who feel themselves categorically to be a Slav people distinct from Serbs or Bulgars, provokes a lot of intellectual fanaticism. For example, a nationalist scholar from Skopje will maintain that his nation has existed for thousands of years whereas a more moderate scholar will say that Macedonians first developed a separate identity from Bulgaria about 100 years ago. A Serb will claim that the Macedonians only emerged as a nation at the end of world war II whereas a fourth, Greek or Bulgarian, will maintain that a claim of a macedonian identity by the people of FYROM is ridiculous and that is has never existed.

[1903] The Ilinden uprising:
The Ottoman authorities had long expected an uprising and had steadily strengthened their positions. Colonel Anastasas Iankoff, an agent of Bulgarian interests, began stirring up western Macedonia, in part to destroy the autonomy of the resident macedonian slavs who were planning a more underground, longer-term uprising. The Turkish authorities quickly re-established control and crushed both groups.
In an attept to provoke great power intervention, Gemidzhii, a group of anarchists associated with the most radical wing of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO), a group which planned for the liberation of the region of macedonia and which was under slavic leadership (but not restricted to slavs), started a series of attacks that provoked the wrath of the muslim mob which began lynching the Slav minority in Salonika killing about 60 before the governor imposed martial law.

On August 2, 1903 VMRO launches the Ilinden Uprising against the Turks and declares Macedonian independence. The revolutionaries capture the town of Krushevo and establish a new government. The uprising is brutally crushed by the Turks. Krushevo is bombarded with artillery over several days, with the Greek and Vlach parts particularly hard hit.

[1908] The Young Turk revolution and the collapse of the Ottoman empire:
The importance of the Young Turk revolution is comparable with the Russian revolution of 1917. The speed with which the Sultan's power crumbled astonished the great powers. The Young Turk revolution was a courageous blow to the despotism of the Sultan. It was the start of a wave of modernity that swept throughout Turkey. The Young Turks issued a general amnesty and promised equality of civil rights for all nationalities. However, external powers saw it as a sign of weakness of the Ottoman Empire and the expansionist ambitions were rekindled.

[1912-1913] The balkan wars. 
The Balkan wars were fought mostly on the territory of the region of Macedonia. The first balkan war was fought mainly against the Turks and the second between the former allied powers to determine the new borders.

After the failure of the Kresna uprising, Ottoman rule was harsher. One Greek agent of the time in Kastoria mentions: "the Christian inhabitants of these parts have reached such a point that they would welcome with open arms not only Russian or Bulgarian bands, but also Indochinese bands, if they would promise them to deliver them from the Ottomans". The Greek and Bulgarian forces were desperate to capture Salonica (source: M. Glenny - The Balkans). It was the single greatest prize of the first Balcan war and there had been no prior agreement about it's status. In this case, possession of the city would count for all the law and foreign powers would be unlikely to intervene. The Greek king Constantine beat the Bulgarian division by a matter of hours and entered the city first, establishing Greek dominance.

The Turkish refusal to hand over Adrianopole to Bulgaria, as the peace treaty required, sparked more fighting. Bulgaria and Serbia attacked and though the Turks heroically defended the city, it fell. Estimates of the dead range between 40 to 60 thousand. The treaty of London recognized the union of Crete with Greece and Bulgarian control of Adrianopole (Edirne). Albania became independent. Only one issue remained - the division of Macedonia.

Bulgaria was much weakened by the first Balkan war and the situation between the former allies was still tense. Greece and Serbia saw this as an opportunity and, prompted by a Bulgarian tactical mistake to issue secret attack orders against Serb positions, the Second Balkan war was started.

The Second Balkan war lasted only 1 month. Greeks and Serbs, joined by local Turks, fought against the Bulgarians. Under the treaty of Bucharest (1913) Bulgaria was forced to surrender almost everything it had gained in the first war by sacrificing tens of thousands of its citizens.

[1914+] The greek prime minister Venizelos was a great supporter of the Megali Idea and considered the transformation of Salonika crucial to the Greek expansionist plans. As an ally of the Entente, he realized that Greece would be in an excellent position to realize its territorial claims primarily against Bulgaria and Turkey. However, the Greek King was a Germanophile and publicly supported Greek neutrality. This caused a Greek national schism.

In 1916, Entente troops landed at Pireus and marched into Athens, settling the dispute. After some fighting against the monarchists, Greece eventually joined the Entente and Venizelos was vindicated while the Greek king Costantine was forced into exile. Bulgarians had joined with the Germans.

At the end of the first world war, Yugoslavia did not exist as a country. In November 1918, it was constituted as a kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes without clear borders. This did not settle the national question.

[World War II] Bulgaria was eventually forced to give up neutrality and join the Axis. Yugoslavia made an agreement in Vienna not to permit German troops to enter the country but to allow the transport of war materials through its borders. No further war obligations towards the Axis powers were required and Yugoslavia could remain intact. In return, the Germans supported Yugoslavian expansionist plans to Salonica - which meant Bulgarian aspirations to get it could not be fulfilled. Infuriated by this agreement with the Axis, Yugoslavians revolted (particularly the Serbs) and there was a coup d'etat. An infuriated Hitler ordered the Wermacht to invade the country. Germany quickly occupied the Balkans and during that time the Jews of Salonika were exterminated in the Croatian Ustase camps.

In 1944 the Red Army advanced in the Balkan Peninsula and forced the German forces to retreat. The pre-war borders were restored under U.S. and British pressure because the Bulgarian government was insisting to keep its military units on Greek soil. The Bulgarian Macedonia returned fairly rapidly to normality, but the Bulgarian patriots in Yugoslav Macedonia underwent a process of ethnic cleansing by the Belgrade authorities, and Greek Macedonia was ravaged by the Greek Civil War, which broke out in December 1944 and did not end until October 1949.

After the Greek civil war, a large number of former ELAS fighters took refuge in communist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and described themselves as "ethnic Macedonians".

[Post World War II] Tito separated Yugoslav Macedonia from Serbia after the war. It became a republic of the new federal Yugoslavia (as the Socialist Republic of Macedonia) in 1946, with its capital at Skopje. Tito also promoted the concept of a separate Macedonian nation, as a means of severing the ties of the Slav population of Yugoslav Macedonia with Bulgaria. Although the regional language is very similar to Bulgarian, the differences were emphasized and the region's historical figures were promoted as being uniquely Macedonian (rather than Serbian or Bulgarian). A separate Macedonian Orthodox Church was established, splitting off from the Serbian Orthodox Church, but it has not been recognized by any other Orthodox Church, including the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Communist Party sought to deter pro-Bulgarian sentiment, which was punished severely; convictions were still being handed down as late as 1991.

Tito had a number of reasons for doing this. First, as an ethnic Croat, he wanted to reduce Serbia's dominance in Yugoslavia; establishing a territory formerly considered Serbian as an equal to Serbia within Yugoslavia achieved this effect. Secondly, he wanted to sever the ties of the Macedonian Slav population with Bulgaria because recognition of that population as Bulgarian would have undermined the unity of the Yugoslav federation. Third of all, Tito sought to justify future Yugoslav claims towards the rest of Macedonia (Pirin and Aegean), in the name of the "liberation" of the region. The potential "Macedonian" state would remain as a constituent republic within Yugoslavia, and so Yugoslavia would manage to get access to the Aegean Sea.

Tito's designs on Macedonia were asserted as early as August, 1944, when in a proclamation he claimed that his goal was to reunify "all parts of Macedonia, divided in 1912 and 1913 by Balkan imperialists". To this end, he opened negotiations with Bulgaria for a new federal state, which would also probably have included Albania, and supported the Greek Communists in the Greek Civil War. The idea of reunification of all of Macedonia under Communist rule was abandoned as late as 1949 when the Greek Communists lost in the Greek Civil War and Tito fell out with the Soviet Union and pro-Soviet Bulgaria.

Sources:
J.M. Roberts - The History of the World
M. Glenny - The Balkans
Britannica
Wikipedia (quotations from referenced sources)

Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze

Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze is a retelling of the Homeric epic story of the Trojan war, including the events not covered in the Iliad. In fact, beyond the Iliad, it draws its sources from major and minor works from classical Greece and Rome (such as the plays of Sophocles and Euripides), many Medieval European sources, and continues through Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida and beyond. There is an extensive list of the sources at the back of each issue, including a glossary and multithreaded genealogical charts for the main houses.


Only three volumes have been published so far (the last one being part 1 of 2) and it already stands at a staggering 600 pages. The story is marvelously told and the writing and art are well within the spirit of the times and well deserving the 2 Eisner awards. The first installment, A Thousand Ships, opens with Paris as a cowherd on mount Ida, which grounds the series before launching into more fantastic adventures.

Equally impressive is Eric's artwork in the Age of Bronze. Not only is it finely drawn with exquisite attention to details and expressions, it is also historically accurate. It draws upon the archaeological excavations of the places where the story took place: Mycenae, Knossos, and Pylos, among others, and especially Troy itself. Eric Shanower has done amazing work researching and reconstructing the architecture and clothing of the time. Impressively, even the geological lay of the land is rendered quite closely, at least for the places that I have personally visited. Mycenae's ruins become gloriously alive in these pages with Agamemnon and Klytemnestra walking down the palace corridors.

The author-cum-artist has researched quite well the wide range of literature, art, and archaeology. . . . The clothing, hairstyles, pottery, frescoes, architecture, boat construction, and the settings in general are in such close agreement with current research that it makes one reflect how differently modern scholars envision the Late Bronze Age Achaeans than did past Homeric specialists. . . . Aegean prehistorians will appreciate how much archaeology has advanced our knowledge of the Mycenaean world to allow Shanower to reproduce it so faithfully.
—Thomas F. Strasser, American Journal of Archaeology

Beyond the awesome scope of the story — this is the closest thing in comics to a true generational saga, what with previously unknown princes, kidnappings, and the other schemes of the rich and powerful. The tragic element in Sacrifice is overwhelming and makes you feel like you're watching a Greek play. Shanower sticks to the sources and, as much as possible, downplays the theological elements.

I've chosen to downplay the supernatural element in order to emphasize the human element. The only fantastic details I've retained are dreams and visions. And when you think about it, these aren't necessarily as supernatural as they might first appear. Everyone draems. Many people have hallucinations. Others are convinced they've had visions. People the world over believe they communicate with gods - it's called prayer. So I've let dreams and visions remain - they're pretty human after all. But no gods in the flesh.

All things considered, a highly recommended read! I'm eagerly awaiting for the next volume.
Thank you Eric.
10/10

USA: Why we fight (2005)

The grim warning by Dwight D. Eisenhower on his farewell address sounds today like the prophecies of Cassandra. This documentary features interviews with many prominent individuals, including Senator John McCain, retired CIA experts, pentagon experts as well as ordinary citizens. The premise is, as the title suggests, to explore the reasons that have led the US to wage wars, although the main part of the movie concentrates on the decision to invade Iraq.
Trailer:

Full movie:

Things have certainly changed since 2005, with the Obama administration coming to power in 2008, but it's still worth a watch.

References:
Hiroshima. Was it necessary?
The Project for a New American Century
Iraq body count