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Notes -
So, what are you reading?
Still on The Question of Palestine. Said's writing is great as usual, and it is making me want to reread Orientalism. He kinda omitted that the displacement of 1948 was in the context of war, but perhaps he was assuming common knowledge. Interesting facts abound, but the core of the book is the system of thought he's applying, and it remains unclear how useful it is.
Otherwise picking up Al-Ghazali's The Book of Contemplation, book 39 of his Revival of the Religious Sciences series.
Now reading Flashman and The Mountain of Light for a palate cleanser after finishing David Edgerton's The Rise and Fall of The British Nation: A Twentieth Century History.
Rise and Fall was interesting but I'm not a historian and I don't take notes, so I can't offer much of a review. Interesting that in the post war years when Britain was bombed out, under rations and repaying the war loans they managed to build out the NHS, pursue major research projects, construct huge amounts of infrastructure and social housing and become near independent in food and energy, until the mid '70s when contrary to popular narrative things were actually going pretty well? Then Thatcher liquidated the nation's assets and Blair threw open the doors to immigration, leading to our current position where both employees and employers are substantially non-British.
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