In 1897, to gain a warm water port on the Pacific Coast Russia took control of an undefended area at the tip of the Chinese Peninsular of Liaotung in southern Manchuria, which included Port Arthur. The Chinese were in no fit state to oppose Russia, and in the end leased…

Plus Agnes Von Kurowsky, Adriana Ivancich, and One or Two Others… Ernest Hemingway was never the serial lover that some writers have suggested. He was a serial marrier for sure. He could certainly charm women and fall in ‘love’ over a couple of drinks. …

A Book about Jazz and Jazz Musicians Back in 1962, when Whitney Balliett’s book, Dinosaurs in the Morning, was first published in the US, Jazz was serious stuff: an important part of life, and not just the musical side of life, but life, in fact it had become — with…

Seen through the pages of John Buchan’s biography of The Lord Protector And in the House of Commons, on the 25th November, 1644, the day after Milton’s polemic, Oliver Cromwell “…set forth mercilessly…” all of Manchester’s short comings: his delays and hesitations, with “…these mistakes…due not to accident or to…

Last year I came across a small book simply called, William Morris, by Richard Tames. Published in 2003, it’s a fine book that tells a long and often complicated story with memorable brevity and simplicity. It’s also a good companion to another book, Something of Myself, written by Rudyard Kipling…

Martha Gellhorn, Django Reinhardt, Maurice Chevalier, Samuel Beckett, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, and more… Life in Paris, between 1940–44, seemed, on the surface, to go on as usual, with The Moulin Rouge, and the Folies Bergere, along with most of the other clubs, bars, and restaurants — plus the swank stores…

“It is given but to few men in so short a time to create for themselves a position of such prominence on two continents…” Booker T. Washington, 1904 I use the term Crowned with Fame because it is the title of a play by Michael Ellis (with superb direction by…

A Story of The Queen’s Suite After Duke Ellington’s appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956 his profile rose like a blazing phoenix from the musical doldrums he had encountered after the rise of Be-bop and Rock ’n’ Roll. …

France 1925 After their first, somewhat inglorious, meeting in The Dingo Bar in Paris, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald met again a few days later for lunch at the Closerie des Lilas, where Hemingway said how sorry he was that the booze had hit Scott the way it had…