And what a dull bunch they are! Almost all of them are are only interested in British or European archeology, and every single one prefers the trowel and brush to bulldozer and explosives. I have been trying to persuade them all that Europe is a dead end, all the history has already dug up and all that remains are a few pots and bones. Even the recently discovered Staffordshire Hoard is mostly a mess of broken fragments that when melted down would hardly cover the expense of digging them up.
To do real archeology you have to head East and it was with some delight at being proved right that I read that finally the lost civilization of Atlantis has been discovered in northern Thailand,
As mentioned earlier I am now re-reading Sen's Development as Freedom, as the first time I just skimmed the book looking for certain passages useful for my essays. It makes interesting reading coming immediately after Imagined Communities and the concepts of nationalism, development and freedom discussed by Benedict Anderson. Here in the West it is hard to imagine how emotive the idea of freedom can be in countries that have suffered colonialism and subsequent authoritarian rule. In Indonesia merdeka still has the power to arouse strong emotion and the flag still symbolises the struggle for independence, even for for the current generation growing up in the 21st Century.
Sen believes that inequality, poor education lack of public health services and economic poverty negate freedom, and he points out in some areas of the USA life expectancy, usually among black people, is less than in many developing countries.
This raises some interesting questions about the degree of non-freedom (there seems to be no appropriate word in English that is neither to strong or too vague.) we are prepared to tolerate for our economic well being. Just recently, apart from the continuing wars in Syria and elsewhere, there have been three issues concerning different kinds of freedoms that have made the news headlines; the freedom to choose an assisted death, the Sun's freedom to print the Harry pictures, and TrapWire. This last issue of public surveillance has not yet caused much public indignation, perhaps because the majority of people are willing to give up a good deal of privacy to combat the perceived threats of crime and terrorism. But the new technologies are creating new forms of freedom and un-freedom.
Things have changed a good deal since the book was first published in 1999, particularly the rise of the internet and social media as tools for freedom.
The game is changing dramatically.
Correction.
I have passed on reports that the Indians were building an exact replica of Angkor Wat - only bigger! - but it seems that this is not actually the case; as this report in the Indian Express explains. It will not only be bigger but better