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Quote by Philip Parker

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World History

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Philip Parker

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“We all know how it went when Europe changed from a culture addicted to depressants to one high on stimulants [...] Within two hundred years of Europe's first cup, famine and the plague were historical footnotes. Governments became more democratic, slavery vanished, and the standards of living and literacy went through the roof. War became less frequent and more horrible.”

“[Joffe], during a visit to Russia, complained to his KGB handler about the awful coffee. The KGB dude replied that it was really the Kremlin's answer to America's neutron bomb -- both killed people but left the building intact. "I was then that I first saw this vision,"said Joffe. Bad coffee equals expansionism, imperialism, and war; good coffee drips with civility and pacifism and lassitude...”

“Once upon a time, there was a civilization in the eastern side of the world. It was one of the most advanced civilizations on the planet that existed during that time. This civilization was the glorious Indus valley civilization. No, I am not talking about India. I am talking about the land of greatness that got lost in time. Today, in the same geographical location of that great civilization, we have a piece of earth, which is known as “India”. But do not mistake it to be the same glorious land that existed thousands of years ago, along with other magnificent civilizations, such as the Greeks, the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Babylonians etc.”

“The reality [of what life was like for the whole of our species for at least 90 percent of its history] was very different to the traditional Western image of such people as uncultured 'savages', living hard and miserable lives in 'a state of nature', with a bitter and bloody struggle to wrest a livelihood matched by a 'war of all against all', which made life 'nasty, brutish and short'. People lived in loose-knit groups of 30 or 40 which might periodically get together with other groups in bigger gatherings of up to 200. But life in such 'band societies' was certainly no harder than for many millions of people living in more 'civilised' agricultural or industrial societies. One eminent anthropologist has even called them 'the original affluent society'. ...An early Jesuit missionary noted of another hunter-gathering people, the Montagnais of Canada, 'The two tyrants who provide hell and torture for many of our Europeans do not reign in their great forests--I mean ambition and avarice...not one of them has given himself to the devil to acquire wealth'. ...Richard Lee is quite right to insist: "It is the long experience of egalitarian sharing that has moulded our past. Despite our seeming adaptation to life in hierarchical societies, and despite the rather dismal track record of human rights in many parts of the world, there are signs that humankind retains a deep-rooted sense of egalitarianism, a deep-rooted commitment to the norm of reciprocity, a deep-rooted...sense of community.”

“On March 13, 1938, Austria was annexed by Germany. It didn’t seem to help that President Roosevelt had sent a letter to Adolf Hitler seeking peace. The year ended with Kristallnacht, when many Jewish shops and synagogues were looted, burned and otherwise destroyed, throughout the fatherland. In 1939, Hitler expanded the German Navy and, in violation of the Munich Agreement, occupied parts of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Germany then established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This protectorate included those portions of Czechoslovakia that had not already been incorporated into Germany. On August 30, 1939, the German Reich issued an ultimatum to Poland concerning the Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig. On September 1st, without waiting for a response to its ultimatum, Germany invaded Poland. Much to Hitler’s surprise, England honored its treaty with Poland. Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany, thereby ushering in another World War. Officially, “The Second World War” in Europe was started by the German Reich when it attacked Poland, although at the time Germany blamed the Treaty of Versailles.”

“As the historian Edward Grant explained, 'It is indisputable that modern science emerged in the seventeenth century in Western Europe and nowhere else'. ... The crucial question is: Why? My answer to this question is as brief as it is unoriginal: Christianity depicted God as a rational, responsive, dependable, and omnipotent being and the universe as his personal creation, thus having a rational, lawful, stable structure, awaiting human comprehension.”

“Founded in 1917 by Peter Brandal, it was named Ny-Ålesund or New Ålesund. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 recognized Norwegian sovereignty and established Svalbard as a free economic zone and a demilitarized zone. It is only 769 miles from the North Pole on the island of Spitsbergen. Ny-Ålesund located at is on the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago and holds the distinction of being the northernmost permanent settlement in the world. Owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry and is not incorporated, however it does have a port which accommodates cruise ships, an airport, a post office, the Svalbard church and the Norwegian Seamen's church. Ny-Ålesund has an all-year permanent population of 30 to 35 which expands to about 120 people in the summer. For accommodations there is the Nordpolhotell, opened on 3 September 1939, and considered the oldest and perhaps the most expensive place to stay in Ny Ålesund. In the 17th and 18th centuries the island was first used as a whaling base in the 17th and 18th centuries. Coal mining was started at the end of the 19th century. Now there are fifteen permanent research stations run by agencies from ten countries. Perhaps the best known is the Global Seed Vault. Deep inside a mountain, it was built to stand the test of time and is considered a fail-safe seed storage facility strong enough to face most natural or man-made disasters. It is also the center for international arctic scientific research.”