Scott Holleran » History

Movie Review: 42

Scott Holleran — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:25:41 +0000

Jackie Robinson is the subject of the poorly named 42, an overly sentimental movie about how to change a culture one man at a time that can’t help but be powerful and moving. Unlike other fact-based historical films centering upon an individual, such as Good Night, and Good Luck and Schindler’s List, there is fundamental [...]

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Pope Francis

Scott Holleran — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 08:19:04 +0000

Naming himself after St. Francis of Assisi, a Catholic who claimed that he answered God’s call to “repair my church in ruins”, a 76-year-old priest from South America became the first Jesuit pope yesterday and, breaking from small, hierarchical rituals, reminded the world that people currently want to believe, i.e. have faith, more than they [...]

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Movie and DVD Review: Schindler’s List

Scott Holleran — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 11:41:42 +0000

Most Holocaust-themed movies minimize the Nazi atrocities. Life is Beautiful trivializes government-sponsored death camps and promises everyone a moral pass with the theme that humor alleviates mass murder – Oliver Stone similarly tried to hustle an upside to Islamicist mass murder in World Trade Center – implying that no one should take life too seriously. Not even [...]

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Movie Review: Emperor

Scott Holleran — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 08:11:18 +0000

Tommy Lee Jones masterfully portrays another figure in American history in Emperor, the story of how and why the wrongly maligned General Douglas MacArthur (Jones, superbly capturing the essence of an American hero) chose to remake postwar Japan after the mystical nation – which attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor – was atomic bombed into [...]

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Neil Armstrong: 1930-2012

Scott Holleran — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:42:25 +0000

Neil Armstrong, who recently died at the age of 82, was the first man on the moon. As a Generation Xer who barely recalls watching his first lunar step on television, I am still in awe that those words as I write them are true. Neil Armstrong’s achievement is one of the greatest moments in [...]

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Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan

Scott Holleran — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 03:14:43 +0000

[1999] “Before my teacher came to me, I did not know that I am.” These are the words of Helen Keller, whose legendary triumph is the subject of William Gibson’s play, The Miracle Worker. The story of how Keller first gained awareness of her own existence, and, later, much more, is the story of one [...]

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New Ayn Rand Exhibit at Chapman University

Scott Holleran — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 21:19:57 +0000

Attending a reception earlier this month to formally open an exhibit at Chapman University, “Celebrating the Drama and Philosophy of Ayn Rand”, I had the pleasure of being given an extensive and informative tour by Ayn Rand Archives curator Jeff Britting and was surprised to find new and interesting material about works with which I’m [...]

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The Truth About President Kennedy

Scott Holleran — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:37:21 +0000

“I’d rather my children red than dead,” President Kennedy told a young White House virgin whom he had summoned for sex, during the so-called Cuban missile crisis, according to the New York Post‘s account of a new book, Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath by Mimi Alford. [...]

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Books: Malcolm X by Manning Marable

Scott Holleran — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:46:56 +0000

In Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (Viking, 2011), Manning Marable (1950–2011) presents what appears to be a thorough and meticulous account of his subject, the assassinated black Moslem leader known as Malcolm X. That Marable, who unfortunately died days before the book’s publication, brings impressive credentials to his work – he was a professor [...]

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Books: Catherine the Great

Scott Holleran — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 03:41:29 +0000

Russian history readers will welcome Robert K. Massie’s new biography of Catherine the Great. The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs accounts for the life of the young German princess who came to Russia at 14 and became its ruler for 34 years. Author Massie, who studied American [...]

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