Academics From The United Kingdom

"Despite the relative breadth of their appeal, the Nazis, with 37 per cent of the vote in July 1932, didn't have enough seats in parliament to govern. In a new election in November, they lost two million votes. Moreover, although conservative politicians, like the business, military, and land-owning elites, were hostile to the Republic, they distrusted the Nazis as 'brown Bolsheviks', and preferred an authoritarian government run by themselves. The problem was that the elites, rightly or wrongly, felt that no government could survive without mass support. This conviction testified to the extent to which 'democratic' assumptions had penetrated even the reactionary right. It also reflected the army's fear that it couldn't maintain order against both Communists and Nazis. For want of alternatives, the conservatives made Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933. Like Mussolini, Hitler alone bridged the gap between parliamentary and street politics."

"How many individuals, movements, and regimes we categorize as 'fascist' depends on definition. If we define fascism simply as a desire to manipulate the mass, or a dictatorship, then a great many would qualify. If we add the criteria of racism and/or antisemitism, a different set would be included. The impossibility of agreeing on a definition means that attempts to identify 'true fascism' can never be decisive. However, this difficulty does not prevent us from examining similarities and differences between various movements or actual interactions and borrowings—'entanglements', as scholar call them. I shall ask how and for what purposes the terms 'fascist' and 'national socialist' were used. Tracing entanglements allows us to see that relation of fascists were strongest with conservative groups, dictatorial or parliamentarian."

"During the 1930s Romanian fascism was highly complex: it consisted of several movements and layers which varied in intensity from to the genuine article. By far the most important, however, was the Legion and , Codreanu providing the sort of charismatic leadership which was more commonly associated with Hitler and Mussolini. His ideas also had much in common with Nazism. [...] Most of this cut little ice with those in power: the monarchy, the army officers and politicians. They were less concerned about mobilization of opinion that about the accumulation of power and about dealing with opponents; increasingly, Condreanu came to be seen as dangerous radical who would destabilize the regime. Although some observers claim that Carol was a 'monarcho-fascist', this term is not particularly appropriate. Carol was never inclined to any systematic ideology and remained traditional and conservative in his policies. This also applied to Michael and the Conducator, Antonescu. Yet, when the latter did finally succeeded in destroying the Legion, he ruled, in Payne's words as 'a right radical nationalist dictator with the support of the military'. Strangely, this was preferred by Hitler since Antonescu offered more security as a Romanian satellite. This was understandable because Hitler's main concern in 1941 was the military use of Romania rather than its complete ideological conversion. Hence, a conservative regime which had been radicalized by its contact with fascism was an ideal balance. In any case this radicalized conservationism proved to be one of the most extreme of all the European states in its policies toward the Jews."

"Brown unashamedly proclaimed himself an "old" historian in terms of shunning trendy topics and approaches. He refused to tolerate nonsense, and he spoke his mind plainly, doubtless stepping on many toes. He must have offended archaeologists with his insistence that archaeology is a branch of history, that an archaeologist should be first a historian and only then an archaeologist"

"R. Allen Brown might be classed as a military historian, but in the broadest possible sense. He restored military history to its place, recognizing that a state's military system is a fundamental aspect of its totality, not an isolated or unimportant sphere."

"Few subjects in English history have been studied more and for longer than the Norman Conquest, and few have been more bent in the process by biased interpretations based upon unhistorical prejudices."

"I have happy memories of the Round Room at the Public Record Office in the 1950s, with the large fire occasionally made up by one of the supervisors, Allen Brown. His students from King's College later helped us at Richard's Castle; his rather assertive style made him a natural teacher and popular with his students."

"One would like to say de mortuis nil nisi bonum, but a friend may be allowed to offer a little criticism. He was not always as receptive to new ideas as he should have been, and as an historian was not always at ease with the physical remains of the period he studied."

"Allen Brown's work encapsulates the slow drift from military to symbolic interpretation [of castles]."

"It sometimes seems to me, with a mixture of admiration and despair, that almost any question one may raise about castles has already been raised, and answered, and often definitively answered, by this remarkable woman [Ella Armitage] in her remarkable book, The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles and the main reason why the study of early castles and their origins in this country has not got very much further since her day is that she did not leave us very much further to go."

"Nowadays, to call anything ‘medieval’ is itself an insult, while to call it ‘feudal’ is ten times more offensive; and if castles are not seen merely as vaguely romantic ruins, they are seen through an idiot haze of bold, bad barons, deep and dismal dungeons, and boiling oil. At best their context is thought to be almost exclusively military, and that too is against them, since in our time one must be against warfare as one used to be against sin."

"China is the classic case in point. It is not even mainly a nation-state.It is, first and foremost a Civilisation-state, a concept that the West has not begun to try and understand."

"Our ascendancy of the past two centuries – first Europe and then the US – has bred a western-centric mentality: the west is the fount of all wisdom. We think of ourselves as open-minded but our sense of superiority has closed our minds. We never entertained the idea that China could surpass the US."

"And yet we still insist, by and large, in thinking that we can understand China by simply drawing on Western experience, looking at it through Western eyes, using Western concepts. If you want to know why we unerringly seem to get China wrong -- our predictions about what's going to happen to China are incorrect -- this is the reason."

"The existence of a de facto global racial hierarchy helps to shape the nature of racial prejudice exhibited by other races. Whites are universally respected, even when that respect is combined with strong resentment. A race generally defers to those above it in the hierarchy and is contemptuous of those below it. The Chinese - like the Japanese - widely consider themselves to be number two in the pecking order and look down upon all other races as inferior. Their respect for whites is also grudging - many Chinese believe that western hegemony is, in effect, held on no more than prolonged leasehold. Those below the Chinese and the Japanese in the hierarchy are invariably people of colour (both Chinese and Japanese often like to see themselves as white, or nearly white). At the bottom of the pile, virtually everywhere it would seem, are those of African descent, the only exception in certain cases being the indigenous peoples."

"India is a country which of all others we are bound to en- lighten with eternal truth…. But what is most important to you friends of missions, is this — that there is a large population of aborigines, a people who are outside caste…. If they are attached, as they rapidly may be, to Christianity, they will form a nucleus round which British power and influence may gather. Remember, too, that Hinduism, although it is dying, yet has force … and such tribes, if not converted to Christianity, may be perverted to Hinduism…. You may be confident that the missions in India are doing a work which strengthens the imperial foundations of British power…. I say that, of all the departments I have ever administered, I never saw one more efficient than the missionary department."

"But for a long time to come the prime movers in these operations must continue to be European. And we hope that a great Christian, and if we may use the term, ecclesiastical army will be raised, the rank and file consisting of natives, while the captains and generals are highly qualified Europeans."

"Thus India is like a mighty bastion which is being battered by heavy artillery. We have given blow after blow, and thud after thud, and the effect is not at first very remarkable; but at last with a crash the mighty structure will come toppling down, and it is our hope that some day the heathen religions of India will in like manner succumb.”"

"The missionaries who accompanied the colonial rulers decided to use this idea to further their own proselytizing activities by branding the tribals as followers of “aboriginal” religions distinct from the “Hinduism” allegedly brought in by the theoretically postulated Aryan invaders. In 1866, Sir Richard Temple edited a book “Papers Related to the Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces”, based primarily on the writings of, and of those inspired by, the missionary Reverend Stephen Hislop (1817-1863), which set the trend in “scholarly” writings on the subject. This rapidly became a matter of colonial policy."

"I cannot give you an exact idea of the vicious orgies which occur constantly in the Hindu temples. There is a considerable amount of immorality, which is practically the outcome of the religion ;though, on the other hand, there are many domestic virtues practised by the people, showing how much of goodness would be produced, if the religion were purer."

"It is commonly said that it was the Mahomedans whom the British displaced as rulers in India. This is true only in a restricted sense. It would be nearer the truth to say that it was the Mahrattas in the main, whom we displaced."

"Now, India presents the greatest of all fields for missionary exertion, greater even than China."

"I shall conclude by reminding you that, as patriotic people, you may be confident that the missions in India are doing a work which strengthens the imperial foundations of British power, and raises our national repute in the eyes of the many millions of people committed to our charge. You may be also confident that the results are fully commensurate with the expenditure."

"Similarly, the Joumal of Indo-European Studies (1973- ) is guided by Roger Pearson (1927- ), founder of the Northern League for Pan-Nordic Friendship and former director of the World Anti-Communist League (a position from which be was, rather incredibly, ousted for extremist excesses). A man who has been described as "one of the most persistent neo-Nazis in the world ," "one of the foremost Nazi apologists in America," and "one of the best-connected racialists in the world," Pearson centers his writings on the relation of race, intelligence, and eugenics."

"In the postwar years, British anthropologist Roger Pearson founded the Northern League for North European Friendship, which brought together former Nazis, like raciologist Hans Günther (who at the time was writing under a pseudonym); former SS member Arthur Ehrhardt; Franz Altheim, one time collaborator of Himmler within the Ahnenerbe (after the war he held a professorship at Halle in East Germany and then in West Berlin); and various neo-Nazis and neo-fascists such as Colin Jordan, Alastair Harper, and John Tyndall in Great Britain. In 1960, Pearson established the Mankind Quarterly journal, the mouthpiece of “scientific racism,” in collaboration with Robert Gayre and, most notably, with Nazi geneticist Ottmar von Verschuer, Mengele’s former superior."

"...Roger Pearson, had since the 1950's been "one of America's foremost Nazi apologists and quite clearly a racist with one of the world's best web of contacts." Before Pearson, along with Marija Gimbutas , Edgar C. Polome' and Raimo Antilla, founded the Journal of Indo-European Studies, he had worked with Hans F. K. Gunther, who had continued to spread his racial doctrines after the fall of the Third Reich. Pearson was also chairman of the American Division of the World Anti Communist League and lobbied in Washington for more funds for the Defense, the Contras, and the UNITA guerillas. Together with Polome', one of the United States' leading researchers in the area of Germanic religion, he has also published the academic, racist journal the Mankind Quarterly. In the 1970s, the Mankind Quarterly, which alternates articles about race and genetics with articles about the Indo-Europeans and prehistoric cultures, became a model when one of Europe’s leading neo-Fascists, Alain de Benoist, founded his own journal called Nouvelle École ."

"Evolution cannot occur unless 'favorable' genes are segregated out from amongst 'unfavorable" genetic formulae' [...] any population that adopts a perverted or dysgenic form of altruism – one which encourages a breeding community to breed disproportionately those of its members who are genetically handicapped rather than from those who are genetically favored, or which aids rival breeding populations to expand while restricting its own birthrate – is unlikely to survive into the definite future."

"The Pioneer Fund has financed the research of Dr. Roger Pearson and others whose articles have appeared in the racialist Journal of Indo-European Studies and publications from the Institute for the Study of Man, a racialist group that promotes debunked pseudoanthropological claims of a racial Aryanist diaspora similar to those favored by the Nazis."

"One of the earliest estimates of the date of the Vedas was at once among the most scientific. In 1790, the Scottish mathematician John Playfair demonstrated that the starting-date of the astronomical observations recorded in the ephemeris tables still in use among Hindu astrologers (of which three copies had reached Europe between 1687 and 1787) had to be 4300 BC. His proposal was dismissed as absurd or as blasphemous by some, but it has so far not been refuted by any scientist... So, it turns out that the data given by the Brahmins corresponded not with the results deduced from their formulae, but with the actual positions, and this, according to Playfair, for nine different astronomical parameters. This is a bit much to explain away as coincidence or sheer luck."

"‘These operations are all founded on a very distinct conception of what happens in the case of an eclipse, and on the knowledge of this theorem, that, in a right-angled triangle, the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the squares of the other two sides. It is curious to find the theorem of PYTHAGORAS in India, where, for aught we know, it may have been discovered, and from whence that philosopher may have derived some of the solid, as well as the visionary speculations, with which he delighted to instruct or amuse his disciples.’"

"Now, it is worth remarking, that this property of the table of sines, which has been so long known in the East, was not observed by the mathematicians of Europe till about two hundred years ago […] If we were not already acquainted withthe high antiquity of the astronomy of Hindostan, nothing could appear more singular than to find a system of trigonometry, so perfect in its principles, in a book so ancient as the Surya Siddhanta […]’ ‘In the progress of science […] the invention of trigonometry is to be considered as a step of great importance, and of considerable difficulty. It is an application of arithmetic to geometry […] (and) a little reflection will convince us, that he, who first formed the idea of exhibiting, in arithmetical tables, the ratios of the sides and angles of all possible triangles, and contrived the means of constructing such tables, must have been a man of profound thought, and of extensive knowledge. However, ancient, therefore, any book may be, in which we meet with a system of trigonometry, we may be assured, that it was not written in the infancy of science.’ ‘As we cannot, therefore, suppose the art of trigonometrical calculation to have been introduced till after a long preparation of other acquisitions, both geometrical and astronomical, we must reckon far back from the date of the Surya Siddhanta, before we come to the origin of the mathematical sciences in India […] Even among the Greeks […] an interval, of at least 1000 years, elapsed from the first observations in astronomy, to the invention of trigonometry; and we have surely no reason to suppose, that the progress of knowledge has been more rapid in other countries.’ ‘A thousand years therefore must be added to the age of the Surya Siddhanta, which we suppose here to be 2000 before Christ, in order that we may reach the origin of the sciences in Hindostan, and this brings us very nearly to the celebrated era of the Calyougham […]’"

"That observations made in India, when all Europe was barbarous or uninhabited, and investigations into the most subtle effects of gravitation made in Europe, near five thousand years afterwards, should thus come in mutual support of one another, is perhaps the most striking example of the progress and vicissitudes of science, which the history of mankind has yet exhibited. (179 0:160)"

"“Aldebaran was therefore 40’ before the point of the vernal equinox, according to the Indian astronomy, in the year 3102 before Christ. (…) [Modern astronomy] gives the longitude of that star 13’ from the vernal equinox, at the time of the Calyougham, agreeing, within 53’, with the determination of the Indian astronomy. This agreement is the more remarkable, that the Brahmins, by their own rules for computing the motion of the fixed stars, could not have assigned this place to Aldebaran for the beginning of Calyougham, had they calculated it from a modern observation. For as they make the motion of the fixed stars too great by more than 3” annually, if they had calculated backward from 1491, they would have placed the fixed stars less advanced by 40 or 50, at their ancient epoch, than they have actually done.”"

"‘We must, therefore, enquire, whether this epoch is real or fictitious, that is, whether it has been determined by actual observation, or has been calculated from the modern epochs of the other tables. For it may naturally be supposed, that the Brahmins, having made observations in later times, or having borrowed from the astronomical knowledge of other nations […] have only calculated what they pretend that their ancestors observed. [...] In doing this, however, the Brahmins must have furnished us with means, almost infallible, of detecting their imposture. It is only for astronomy, in its most perfect state, to go back to the distance of forty-six centuries, and to ascertain the situation of the heavenly bodies at so remote a period. The modern astronomy of Europe […] could not venture on so difficult a task, were it not assisted by the theory of gravitation, and had not the integral calculus […] been able, at last, to determine the disturbances in our system, which arise from the action of the planets on one another. [...] Unless the corrections for these disturbances be taken into account, any system of astronomical tables, however accurate at the time of its formation, and however diligently copied from the heavens, will be found less exact for every instant, either before or after that time, and will continually diverge more and more from the truth, both for future and past ages. [...] It may (therefore) be established as a maxim, that, if there be given a system of astronomical tables, founded on observations of an unknown date (epoch), that date may be found, by taking the time when the tables represent the celestial motions most exactly. Here, therefore, we have a criterion, by which we are to judge of the pretensions of the Indian astronomy to so great antiquity.’ ‘...observations made in India, when all Europe was barbarous or uninhabited, and investigations into the most subtle effects of gravitation made in Europe, near five thousand years afterwards […] thus come in mutual support of one another.’"

"The observations on which the astronomy of India is founded, were made more than three thousand years before the Christian era. (…) Two other elements of this astronomy, the equation of the sun’s centre and the obliquity of the ecliptic (…) seem to point to a period still more remote, and to fix the origin of this astronomy 1000 or 1200 years earlier, that is, 4300 years before the Christian era."

"It was well observed by Playfair, some 90 years ago, that "a theory that explains everything explains nothing.""

"Playfair's judicious use of astronomy was countered by John Bentley with a scriptural argument which will not convince many people today. In 1825, Bentley objected: “By his [= Playfair’s] attempt to uphold the antiquity of Hindu books against absolute facts, he thereby supports all those horrid abuses and impositions found in them, under the pretended sanction of antiquity. Nay, his aim goes still deeper, for by the same means he endeavours to overturn the Mosaic account, and sap the very foundation of our religion: for if we are to believe in the antiquity of Hindu books, as he would wish us, then the Mosaic account is all a fable, or a fiction.”"

"Marshall thus provided the foundation for a regional myth in India to assist perhaps innocently the 'divide and rule' policy of British Imperialism."

"Taken as a whole, their [the Indus Valley people’s] religion is so characteristically Indian as *hardly to be distinguished from still living Hinduism….* One thing that ‘stands out both at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa is that the civilization hitherto revealed at these two places is not an incipient civilization, but one already age-old and stereotyped on Indian soil, with many millennia of human endeavour behind it."

"There is nothing that we know of in pre-historic Egypt or Mesopotamia or anywhere else in Western Asia to compare with the well-built baths and commodious houses of the citizens of Mohenjo-daro. In those countries, much money and thought were lavished on the building of magnificent temples for the gods and on the palaces and tombs of kings, but the rest of the people seemingly had to content themselves with insignificant dwellings of mud. In the Indus Valley, the picture is reversed and the finest structures are those erected for the convenience of the citizens."

"Hitherto it has commonly been supposed that the pre‐Aryan peoples of India were on an altogether lower plane of civilization than their Aryan conquerors … Never for a moment was it imagined that five thousand years ago, before ever the Aryans were heard of, the Panjab and Sind, if not other parts of India as well, were enjoying an advanced and singularly uniform civilization of their own, closely akin but in some respects even superior to that of contemporary Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet this is what the discoveries at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro have now placed beyond question. (Marshall, 1931: v)"

"As in its original language, we see the roots and shoots of the languages of Greek and Latin, of Celt, Teuton and Slavonian, so the deities, the myths and the religious beliefs and practices of the Veda throw a flood of light upon the religions of all European countries before the introduction of Christianity. As the science of comparative philology could hardly have existed without the study of Sanskrit, so the comparative history of the religions of the world would have been impossible without the study of the Veda."

"These discoveries establish the existence in Sind (the northernmost province of the Bombay Presidency) and the Punjab, during the fourth and third millennium B.C., of a highly developed city life; and the presence, in many of the houses, of wells and bathrooms as well as an elaborate drainage-system, betoken a social condition of the citizens at least equal to that found in Sumer, and superior to that prevailing in contemporary Babylonia and Egypt. . . . Even at Ur the houses are by no means equal in point of construction to those of Mohenjo-daro."

"Indians have always been justly proud of their age-old civilization and believing that this civilization was as ancient as any in Asia, they have long been hoping that archaeology would discover definite monumental evidence to justify their belief. This hope has now been fulfilled."

"Not often has it been given to archaeologists, as it was given to Schliemann at Tiryns and Mycenae, or to [Aurel] Stein in the deserts of Turkestan, to light upon the remains of a long-forgotten civilization. It looks, however, at this moment, as if we were on the threshold of such a discovery in the plains of the Indus."

"So there is the first message for all of you as potential inventors. Take your own ideas a little further before giving them up. Keep your experience like a sort of treasure house that you can draw on whenever you like. But never, never let it be your master. Be on the lookout for impossible things, the sort the Red Queen dreamed up before breakfast."

"I was telephoned by a man called Alexander Charles Jones, who asked me if he might bring me a box of apparatus which he said when put on frictionless casters and set in motion inside, would displace itself outside its own dimension. Immediately I knew this man was different. ...Any ordinary crank would have said, "How would you like to see Newton's Laws disobeyed." ...So I said... "Does you box contain anything that might loosely be described as a gyroscope?" ...He said, "In the box, there is a gyroscope." I said, "I think you'd better come and show it to me... because I know enough about gyros to know that they're like electromagnetism, and I've studied electromagnetism for thirty years and I know darn well I don't understand it, and I don't understand gyros either, but I can invent new things in electromagnetism once a year. And if you've got something new about gyroscopes I want to see it." And he brought it, and it did. And that was the start of a new line of research for me. And then, about a year later, I met a second enthusiast called Edwin Rickman who added his own brand of instinct that... improved the ideas we'd already got. Let me say of Alex Jones that since I first met him that I've been convinced both of the validity of his argument, and been impressed with his feel for what I'd call the elements of nature. A thing that the more learned acknowledgement of science and mathematics have seldom had, a natural feel for what goes on..."

"Linear motors can be regarded... as the physical result of splitting and unrolling of rotary machines, and there are therefore at least as many types of linear motor as rotary..."

"When you discover something or observe something for the first time, you... wonder how that works, and then you make one, and you look at it, and you decide you'd better find out how it works. ...[Y]ou set about a detailed series of experiments, and eventually, ...you have to do the sums, it wouldn't be respectable without doing the sums... [Y]ou do the sums and then you publish it as a paper in the learned society journal. ...[Y]ou write it as if it was done from the front, as if on morning one you said "I will now invent the magnetic river..." ...[T]his very unfortunate phrase keeps coming in, "Now it is cleat that..." and "Clearly, obviously..." None of it is obvious. It wasn't the day before you started. No, you do it from the back."

"There are all kinds of people thinking about all kinds of things all of the time. That sentence sums up what I would describe as the ultimate deterrent to oppose the urge to invent. It is the feeling that it's all been done. Someone must have done this. I was born too late. All the good pickings are in the last century, and other such rubbish."