The role played by scholar, academic and adventurer Bernard Pares in Britain’s relationship with Imperial Russia and the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention continues to be overlooked in popular history. This article explores the complex relationship between Pares’ groundwork for the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce in 1907, the British Russia Bureau during the First World…
Vegetable Eugenics — Genius Lost and Genius Regained.
16-minute podcast discussion If F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby exposed the tragic reality of Eugenics and the cruel, pyrrhic triumph of the American Dream, then it was only because previous attempts to drive a nail through its genetically superior heart with comedy had failed to prevent its moronic spread. The cheeky, irreverent view the…
Victor Grayson & the Etaples Mutiny
On September 9th 1917 former Colne Valley Socialist MP and would-be revolutionary Victor Grayson (Charles Strange in the TV Series) arrived in Etaples Base Camp. A few hours later a mutiny was in full swing.
Eugenically Speaking — How F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Love or Eugenics?’ prepared the way for Gatsby
Listen the 11-minute podcast The Great Gatsby wasn’t the first time that F. Scott Fitzgerald had confronted the rising tide of bigotry that had been surging around Eugenics. As an 18 year-old student at Princeton University, Scott had written what even his contemporaries — and more extraordinarily still, his fellow students — had regarded as…
The Rise of the Coloured Empires — Gatsby and Eugenics
“Civilization’s going to pieces,’ broke out Tom violently. ‘I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Coloured Empires by this man Goddard? Well, it’s a fine book and everyone ought to read it … This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you…
The Holocaust Was Complete: The Great Gatsby and the Lost Green Light of Liberty Part II
The second of a two-part look at the impact that the sinking of the Titanic may have had on the conception of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. What does the author mean by ‘the Holocuast was complete’? What was the author saying about the times? Henry Adams and F. Scott Fitzgerald weren’t the only…
The Green Light at the End of the Dock. The Great Gatsby and Titanic
April 10, 2023 marks 98 years since the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and 111 years since the RMS Titanic left Southampton’s White Star Dock on its ill-fated maiden voyage. This article explores the meaning and symbolism behind the green light and its possible inspiration in the Titanic disaster. This article explores…
Herbert Elvin, Father Baker, Josef Stalin and the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
One of the most frequently overlooked allies of Kinder Scout ‘right to roam’ campaigners, G.H.B Ward, William Rust and Benny Rothman was Herbert H. Elvin. Like Ward, Elvin had emerged in Britain’s blooming Trade Union movement, quickly recognising the positive trade-off between working men’s groups and sport. The Clarion Ramblers and Clarion Cyclists were among…
Meyer Wolfsheim — Arnold Rothstein, Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby
A 157-page PDF book of this story can be found here Among the masses of articles and books on the Jewish origins of Jay Gatsby, by far the most popular evidence that gets cited on a regular basis relates to Gatsby’s small, flat-nosed friend and mentor Meyer Wolfsheim — ‘the man who fixed the World…
Max von Gerlach aka Max Stork – The Original Great Gatsby?
“He started as one man I knew and then changed into myself.” That’s how the author described his most famous creation, Jay Gatsby. And on the evidence currently available there’s no reason to doubt him. Discoveries made by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Horst Kruse suggest that the ‘one man’ he knew was Max Gerlach, whose…