4 thoughts on “C.S. Lewis Book Cheap”

1. ‘You already own this’

   Nope. I must be missing something about it, but despite several attempts to read it starting from high school years into college years I just couldn’t be interested in it. Same with the LOTR stuff.

   What is the draw with Lewis’ stuff?

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2. Bratchett or Pratchett?

   What is the draw. Religious metaphors perhaps, with connotations from the slaughter and careless inhumanity of WW1.

   Haw many have read ‘The Screwtape Letters’ religious satire?

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3. Well, they are good stories and fun to read. But, people like (and don’t like) what they like (and don’t like).

   By the way, Lionel, I think people don’t give enough credit to the role of the Boer War to those authors, esp. JRRT. That war for example had two major sieges, and an unprecedented ethnic diversity among the combatants. That war also influenced British culture a great deal in ways that I think Brits take for granted and Americans are nearly totally unaware of. (And technically JRRT was South African)

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   1. Although JRR Tolkien was born in the Orange Free State so he probably considered himself British, or English.

      To be sure The Boer War had a dramatic effect on how the British people perceived themselves given the gung-ho nature of propaganda from the usual suspects – the press. The reverse of the medal was the revelations of the abhorrent policies of the authorities at home and in the cape with respect to the creation of concentration camps within which so many thousands suffered and died, mostly women and children.

      Thomas Pakenham’s book, ‘The Boer War ‘ should be a standard text on the topic. His previous ‘The Scramble for Africa’ should also be on ones reading list for the deeper and wider history of the actions of the imperial powers on that continent.

      Improved understanding of what drove the Boar War can be had by consulting Professor Carroll Quigley’s ‘The Anglo-American Establishment’. Quigley’s has used his extensive research to produce an illuminating narrative describing the foundation of a group drawn from Oxford University, Baliol, New College, All Saints (England) luminaries and imperial visionaries active in southern Africa.

      Cecil Rhodes used his legacy to set up the Rhodes Scholarship scheme, Rhodes scholars include Bill Clinton and Rachel Maddow.

      Another group founder was Alfred Milner became the leader of what became known as Milner’s Kindergarten which included many military figures who would become prominent during the course of World War One see also: ‘Lord Milner’s Second War: The Rhodes-Milner Secret Society; The Origin of World War I; and the Start of the New World Order’ John P. Cafferky.

      William T Stead, when editor of The Times was also a leading light of the Rhodes-Milner group ensuring that that organ published material that would be helpful to the cause of British imperialism and squashing any dissent, echoing, for example, Milner’s entreaty to ‘disregard the screamers’ who were raising concerns about the treatment of Boer families by the British military and establishment, Emily Hobhouse being a leading figure in the campaign to expose the evils of imperial policy. The military-establishment-financial axis continued its campaign of atrocities into the 1950s with the slaughter and torture of the Kikuyu in Kenya where Evelyn Baring demonstrated his ‘indifference’ to suffering (reading on that at the moment).

      The initial poor performance of the British army in southern Africa became the driver for reforms initiated by Richard Burdon 1st Viscount Haldane, that created a force that surprised von Kluck’s First Army with its accurate rifle fire and tenacity.

      Haldane was also one of the ‘Relugas Three’ along with the machiavellian Edward Grey and Herbert Asquith. The manner in which such as these manipulated the messages in order to create a war are described in ‘Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War’ Gerry Docherty and James MacGregor. The authors also describe how the war was extended in their ‘Prolonging The Agony: How International Bankers and their Political Partners Deliberately Extended WW1’.

      Study of the above will indeed show how the Boer War, and those who enabled it, a precursor being the raid by one Leander Star Jameson, laid the foundations for manipulation of the population using the press owned by those with wealth and position a situation which continues down to this day.

      I have more from a reasonable library on related topics including WW1 history, the military and naval campaigns globally with s full section on such as Jutland. Also histories of China and India. I once had an Anglo-Indian lady friend who liked to berate me on the behaviour of British imperialists on that continent, I now thoroughly agree with her – the propaganda fed to us as education and don’t get me started on Churchill – on a wide range of issues. Those opium wars, paid for by the indigenous Indians so that Britain could control China. And our UK (soon to be DUK or ex-UK) politicians hope for favourable trade deals – with that long shadow some hopes.

      Not forgetting your own Marine General Smedley Butler and his declaration ‘War is a Racket’. Even firms such as IBM profited from war, WW2 in this case, by trade with Nazi Germany as exposed in ‘IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation’ by Edwin Black.