‘HOLIDAYS mean holiday reading: Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler for restorative nostalgia, complemented by scatters hot nuggets from new books and book reviews. Bettany Hughes’ The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World answers old riddles with fresh research.
A visit to Cairo last year rejuvenated my interest in some awkward questions about the pyramid miracle. Did Pharaoh Khufu’s architects construct the Great Pyramid of Giza four thousand years ago without understanding gravity? Or should we believe that Isaac Newton ‘discovered’ gravity in the 17th century after a loose apple fell on his head?
Khufu did not use Israelite slaves as labour, which lays another urban myth to rest. The 20,000 workers who raised massive stones, each weighing between one and 2.5 tonnes, every two or three minutes for 10 hours a day over 24 years were Egyptian peasants and farmers doing statutory state duty in turns. Each building block was balanced on the other using levers at a scientifically precise angle for stability along a slope rising to 481 feet.
The Egyptian word for pyramid is mer, or a place of ascension. Khufu believed he was divine. If you have built the Giza pyramid, you may even have logic on your side.
Racism and plagiarism
Now that a president of Harvard University has been humbled because of appalling insensitivity towards the Jewish people compounded by infantile plagiarism, is it permissible to accuse the British icon Winston Churchill of both? His racist views on Indians are well known. Less famous is the fact that one of his most brilliant phrases, the iron curtain dividing communist and noncommunist Europe, was not original.
Twenty eight years before Churchill used it in a speech at Fulton in 1946, it had appeared in a book written by an unknown Russian, Vasily Rozanov. Churchill may not have been always original but at least he was well read.
While we are on the subject of misquotation, Voltaire never said: “I disagree with what you have to say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” A biography published in 1904 attributed it to the French philosopher. I rather prefer what Voltaire indisputably did say: “Judge a man by his questions, not his answers.”
European colonialism
Why does this paragraph from a powerful British minister never find its way into the history books? According to the year-end issue of Spectator, Viscount Brentford, Home Secretary between 1924 and 1929, was blunt: “I know it is said at missionary meetings that we conquered India to raise the level of Indians. This is cant. We conquered India as an outlet for the goods of Great Britain. We conquered India by the sword and by the sword we should hold it.”
Hence Brentford, the honest imperialist, admired Brigadier General Reginald Dyer for butchering Indians at Jallianwala Bagh in 1919. He visited Amritsar to celebrate the massacre, not condemn it. He helped raise £26,000 for Dyer, equivalent to a million pounds today.
I was reminded of an African proverb: “Unless the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.” The lions of Afro-Asia have not yet fully honed their writing skills to the point where they can effectively amend the narrative which lauds European colonialism as more benevolent than punitive.
Quote of the year
My quote of the year the year turns to pearls from the past, discovered in 2023. The great filmstar Cary Grant, who rose from the slums of London to the heights of Hollywood, once remarked: “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.” Think about it.
