Brahmanical history is based on myths. It neither has been constructed chronologically nor is factually correct. It has eclipsed the reality with a cobweb of myths. To establish a new creed, established dogmas must be disproven. Ish Mishra reviews ‘Mahishasur: Mithak va Paramparayen’ :

The book Mahishasur: Mithak va Paramparayen (Ma…[Read more]

Recently, an important book, Mahishasur: Mithak va Paramparayen (Mahishasur: Myth and Traditions), edited by Pramod Ranjan, was published by Forward Press in collaboration with Marginalised Publication. The book lets the reader travel through the living history of the myths of Durga and Mahishasur. The book is divided into five parts – ‘Yatra Vri…[Read more]

Unlike French stereo photographers, who flooded the market with Spanish views, the most important British publishers and photographers rarely made Spanish views. Quite possibly this was precisely because of the rapid market penetration of the French, such as Gaudin, Ferrier and others, and in spite of the leading British photographic houses, such…[Read more]

The first time that there is historical steadfastness of the presence of a photographer in a warlike conflict, as graphic correspondent is in the war of Crimea, in 1854-55. In the successive conflicts armed with importance that happen from this date, 1859 and 1860, with the reunification of Italy and other episodes in the British empire, the photo…[Read more]

This essay traces some of the contexts and media in which “Heracles-Hercules” – as a hero between virtue and hubris – was visible in European societies from the end of the middle ages onwards. It discusses whether this example of the reception, appropriation and transformation of classical myths in the early modern period can be understood as a…[Read more]

For two years, from 1788 to 1790, Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1739-1807) exchanged her familiar surroundings with Rome and Naples. She undertook her furthest and most ambitious journey at the age of almost 49. For the only time the princely widow left Germany or the German territories of the Reich. During her stay, the Duchess…[Read more]

The period of masonic internationalism in the last third of the 19th and first third of the 20th centuries saw the most visible – and controversial – attempts to organisationally model the “cosmopolitan imperative” of freemasonry. The various freemasonries in Europe saw themselves as links in a world-spanning “chain of brothers” forged by the…[Read more]

In ‘Degeneration’ (1892), Max Nordau included Émile Zola in his theory that fin-de-siècle artists were a danger to society. According to Nordau, the ‘false science’ in Zola’s Naturalist novels would erode social progress in their alleged preoccupation with disease, sexual deviancy and amorality. This article proposes that degeneration is, how…[Read more]

Haussmann’s re-building of Paris in the 1850s and ’60s had created an ordered city. However, the bourgeoisie used the new urban configurations as a weapon against the lower classes. This article describes the spaces of the underground and the overground: the underground is the metaphorical and literal rubbish heap for those in the lower parts of…[Read more]

Freedom of or from religion. Freemasonry as an international testing ground for fundamental societal issues (c. 1850–1930)
In masonic internationalism, key framework parameters of masonic activity were negotiated. They concerned the fundamental societal issue of how religious freedom (freedom to practise religion) and liberty of conscience (…[Read more]

Several documents from Egypt and Ḫatti (especially the Amarna letters and the Egyptian-Hittite correspondence) mention envoys and messengers in charge of diplomatic contacts between the two countries. Cuneiform and hieroglyphic transcriptions of Egyptian names at Ugarit hint at an actual presence (in Ugarit and Karkemish) of officials coming f…[Read more]

Espigando el diverso y abigarrado contenido del primer artículo dedicado a la biografía de Mencía de Mendoza, es bastante curioso el hecho de que su humilde y opaco autor, que no se atrevió a firmar la pieza, otorgase veracidad a una supuesta conversación entre la dama y su marido. Según este relato, en una de las ocasiones en que el noble guerr…[Read more]

This article examines the mixture of hostile and amicable relations that Bavarian fighting men had with French civilians during the Franco-Prussian War, when civilians provided food, fodder and quarters to the invading armies and sometimes took up arms against them. Relying mainly on published personal narratives, this article looks at the…[Read more]

This chapter focuses on German soldiers and French civilians in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, using the example of the Bavarian contingent. It examines why soldiers sometimes departed from generally accepted standards in Europe about sparing civilians the effects of war as much as possible.

Far from detracting from the image emerging in the historiography of an up-to-date, national profession, the Wilhelmine officer corps’ showy appearance and ritualistic comportment underscore the great lengths to which the corps went to adjust to contemporaneous social, political, and cultural developments in the Kaiserreich.

This essay offers a revisionist interpretation of the Imperial German officer corps, whose members have long enjoyed a schizophrenic reputation in the historiography as either consummate military professionals or feudalistic representatives of a bygone political system. Using the career of Wilhelm Groener (1867-1939). it reexamines the…[Read more]

The scope of the traditions related to Mahishasur is vast. There is a memorial of him in Bundelkhand, preserved by the Archaelogical Survey of India. Khajuraho’s world-famous temples also have carvings of Mahishasur.

On 9 October 2014, the police had raided the office of Forward Press. Some people associated with Hindu organizations had a c…[Read more]

यह बुंदेलखंड स्थित महोबा का यात्रा संस्मरण है।
इसमें लेखक पौराणिक मिथक महिषासुर से संबंधित स्थलों की खोज में निकलता है।
वर्ष 2011 में जवाहर लाल नेहरू यूनिवर्सिटी के शोधार्थियों द्वारा महिषासुर को दलित, पिछड़े और आदिवासियों का पौरणिक नायक के रूप से प्रचारित किए जाने के बाद हंगामा खड़ा हो गया था। लेखक उस समय एक पत्रिका में प्रबंध-संपादक के रूप म…[Read more]

How do people make sense of works of art? And how do they write to make others see the same way? There are many guides to looking at art, histories of art history and art criticism, and accounts of various ‘theories’ and ‘methods’, but this book offers something very unlike the normal search for difference and division: it examines the general…[Read more]

Freemasons often referred to an ideal of “humanité” (Humanität, umanità, humanity) in order to bridge all differences separating mankind. In doing so, they rendered these differences all the more visible, especially in the international arenas. This was definitely the case when freemasons tried to deduce from this ideal “universal” standards…[Read more]