A new biography of Stephen Hawking presents the renowned physicist not simply as a scientific celebrity who overcame severe disability, but as a researcher whose relationships, intellectual clarity and determination were central
A new biography of Stephen Hawking presents the renowned physicist not simply as a scientific celebrity who overcame severe disability, but as a researcher whose relationships, intellectual clarity and determination were central
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by Nil There is something almost unsettling about the fact that Charles Spencer’s most intimate book about Diana begins, in effect, with a question of possession: who knew her best? His mother,
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by Eric A family history can begin with a birth certificate, a grave, a photograph or a name. Edward Ball begins somewhere more difficult: with a sexual encounter whose moral meaning cannot
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Basque writer Bernardo Atxaga’s new novel Golondrinas begins with the burial of legendary boxer Urtain and follows three funerals in the same grave across 50 years, blending death, rural decline, fantasy and
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The article examines the controversy surrounding the planting of a purported Sri Maha Bodhi sapling at Vadunnagala, an ancient Buddhist archaeological site in northern Sri Lanka, by politician Sarath Weerasekara. It links
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Singapore’s success was built on a compact city-state, a strategic port, concentrated population, state-controlled housing, tightly coordinated institutions and deliberate social engineering. Sri Lanka, with its rural economy, agricultural regions, established ethnic
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The Dutch transformation of Sri Lanka was not based solely on military power or direct colonial administration. According to the source, its deeper impact lay in the creation of systems through which
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This interview traces Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda’s journey from JVP revolutionary to political scientist, examining his early experiences of poverty, caste and inequality, his role in the 1971 uprising, imprisonment at Welikada, and
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For decades, a persistent German family narrative portrayed the aristocracy as a social class that had viewed Adolf Hitler with contempt and largely stood outside his dictatorship. Research examined by Der Spiegel
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Nearly three decades after Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a Paris car crash while being pursued by paparazzi, her brother Charles Spencer has reopened some of the most contentious arguments surrounding
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A newly reviewed wartime document shows that Japan’s Imperial Army secretly prepared for the possibility of imposing martial law in Tokyo in January 1945, amid fears that large-scale US air raids could
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Tamil political parties and politicians are seeking political advantage from Thileepan’s death. Last year, Fisheries, Aquatic and Ocean Resources Minister Ramalingham Chandrasekaran was prevented from entering the Thileepan memorial in Nallur on
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This column looks beyond government tensions to explore the human connections that have shaped China–US relations, from education and wartime cooperation to youth exchanges and sport. It argues that despite geopolitical differences,
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The death of Geli Raubal, Adolf Hitler’s 23-year-old niece, has long been surrounded by conflicting accounts. She was found dead in September 1931 in Hitler’s Munich flat at Prinzregentenplatz. The established chronology
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A remarkable archaeological discovery in Austria is forcing a reassessment of the scale of Iron Age iron production and trade in Central Europe. The findings, reported in Antiquity, the international, peer-reviewed journal
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