The Last Kingdom By Bernard Cornwell's The Last Kingdom

A Kingdom Strange by John Horn is a history book about settlers trying to establish the first English colony in America. They faced many obstacles and challenges trying to establish the colony of Roanoke.

Jared Diamond is a world renowned scientist, author, Pulitzer Prize winner, and currently a geography professor at UCLA. Of his six books published, we will be looking at the last chapter of his fourth book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. In this book Diamond utilizes the comparative method to find resemblance in past societal collapses with our current society. In the chapter entitled, "The World as Polder: What Does it Mean to Us Today," Diamond points out that there are indeed many parallels between past and present societies and that our modern day society is currently on a path of self destruction , through examples such as globalization and the interdependency of each country.

After our class viewing of the Age of Champions as well as reading the numerous articles including one by Rowe & Kahn, it is clear that there is a variety of ways people can view the term “aging successfully.” A variety of gerontologists have similarities and differences in their definition of the term, and this paper will compare some of the athletes from the film these definitions.

The Jungle is book that takes the reader in a period in time where the “American Dream” was the only thing worth believing in the daily job struggles of immigrants in America during the early twentieth century. What is the American Dream? It is said that any man or woman willing to work hard in this country and work an honest day is capable living and could support his family and have an equal opportunity to success. Although The Jungle was taken account more on how the meat production was disgusting and unhealthy for production and consumption. However many missed the real message of this book in which Sinclair wants to engage the reader in particular scenario of the failure of capitalism. According to Sinclair, socialism is the only way out of the failure of capitalism. It is the way that all problems can be solved and works for the benefit of everyone where capitalism works against the people. The slow destruction of Jurgis’s family at the hands of a cruel and unfair economic and social system demonstrates the effect of capitalism on the working class. As the immigrants, who believe an idealistic faith in the American Dream of hard work leading to material success, are slowly used up, tortured, and destroyed.

African Americans have been discriminated and were not treated fairly from the beginning of the American colonies up to the 1960s. Their history included about 250 years of slavery followed by another 100 years of discrimination. However, many people state that throughout the 1800s, the whaling industry helped African Americans thrive as a race. In addition, they were treated as equals and could gain glory and wealth from it. In most cases, this is not true because negroes for three main reasons. Almost all African people did not receive high positions on their crew ships. Also, they experienced segregation on ships and were treated not equally. Finally, they were taken for their cheap and hard labor in a dangerous, unrewarding industry. Using internet sources and the novel, In The Heart of The Sea, by Nathaniel Philbrick, African Americans in the whaling industry had low status within crews and faced harsh working conditions as well as discrimination and racism.

Anglo-Saxon culture consisted of receiving fame, glory, and wealth through acts of vengeance and courage. “Beowulf” portrays these parts in great detail and shows how destabilizing it can be. Through acts of vengeance, a never ending war occurs.

Currently there is six million Natives living in between the United States and Canada, and only "25,000 Blackfoot Indians between the two countries"(Reddish). In the short story "Borders" by Thomas King, the treatment of natives is shown to light in a common practice. While trying to cross the United States-Canada border to visit her oldest daughter in Salt Lake City, Utah, a woman and her youngest son, of Blackfoot Indian decent, are stopped at the border. She is questioned about her nationality and calmly states "I am Blackfoot, neither American or Canadian"(King, 918). She is not allowed to enter the United States nor Canada and is stuck in a neutral zone. News channels and Newspapers cover this story as the bureaucratic dilemma ensued, many people were shocked with the treatment of Native Americans. They are eventually allowed to pass through to the United States, however this leaves many people wondering about the treatment of Natives Americans, which King displays through conflict.

The universe doesn’t owe you, me, or anyone a thing, except for death. Though as kids most of us were led to believe that with enough effort and hard work were going to become whatever we wanted to be, we were going to have whatever our little hearts desired, and we were going to do whatever we wanted to do. However, as we grew up we realized that this is not the case. There are millions of people who did not become professional athletes, models, or billionaires, people who never got to have the mansions, cars, and fame that they always longed for, people who never got to travel the world, cure cancer, or fly into space. These are all mostly childlike dreams, which were probably imposed unto us by either our parents or society. There’s nothing wrong with children having these sort of improbable dreams, however, there comes a time where we can no longer be children. In the story Tandolfo the Great, written by Richard Bausch, we are introduced to Rodney Wilbury aka Tandolfo the Great, who is a suitable example to demonstrate what life can be like for those who are unable to grow out of their childlike mind sets. In this analysis I will be inspecting how Tandolfo the Great’s childish mind set, from his strong sense of entitlement to his inability to let go of the past events, has almost destroyed his life and how it can destroy anyone else’s.

The contemplative question of “What would Jesus do?” has become a popular pragmatism in society today. There is an unwritten rule or sense of morality by which a properly functioning civilization may live. However, what method did early Anglo-Saxons use to remind themselves of what would be the proper thing to do in a situation? Even though they were a violent and warmongering culture as a whole, geared toward waging and winning war, they did have a moral code to honor. Anglo-Saxons prized the values, which they would have been learned by rote since childhood, including: courage and selflessness, honor, discipline and duty, hospitality, self-reliance, and perseverance. These principles of character are some of the main mores clearly

Rome is known for its’ empire (The Roman Empire). Rome started out small and ended up becoming this huge and undefeatable force of nature. Rome received their success by either attacking other nearby towns/neighbors or granting them treaties or citizenships. E. Badien, the author who created an article called, The Organization Of Italy, explains how Rome organized Italy, and got their neighboring cities and nations to join them and turn ancient Italy into a leading state of power. In Badien’s observations, he finds that granting citizenship and the Latin’s helped Rome to become powerful and assisting Italy to be more structured.

During the Anglo-Saxon time, the social periode of this age was hard on everyone, for this particular reason it had a big effect on the literature of this time, literature during these centuries reflected the realism of the situations and experiences of the time period ….. The fall of the Roman Empire threw the social conditions into chaos ; there was a lot of war between between cultures & religions, along with disagreement and mistreatment between classes of people (especially when it was a time of feudalism ), Historians and others thought of this iron age to be ; corrupt, vile and hellish ,because of this it has and continues to be nicknamed the “Dark Ages “. The Literature of this age shows the fatalistic world view that the people developed from this wretched time, the writings tell of death and war with little hope for a better future.For example in the story of Beowulf it shows the many challenges that a society had to face before it could even be near peace and even then problems kept coming, not only does it show these

Alfred the Great was born in Wantage, United Kingdom sometime in 849 AD. As the 4th and youngest son of his father, Æthelwulf of Wessex, Alfred was never expected to succeed to the throne of Wessex, but after his brother Aethelred’s death in 871 he became King of Wessex. As king he united seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and began his military campaign against the ever closing threat, the Vikings. One of Alfred’s greatest accomplishments was his ability to lead his military into battle and protect his people by repelling Viking raids on the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Alfred accomplished this by the formation of a standing army whose main purpose was to “provide Wessex with a military group that was mobile enough to quickly intercept Viking raiders and prevent raids from threatening Wessex civilians” (Reuter 220). Although these small military groups may not have been as robust as a regular army, they were instrumental in the

The story begins during the siege of the Jewish fortress of Metsada by the Roman’s (Deutermann 3-24). After the Jewish soldiers inside realize the fortress is doomed and that the Romans would break through the next morning, they decide to sacrifice themselves, all 980 of them. The fathers kill their children and wives before turning it on themselves, while we witness it through the eyes of “the last man”, a man selected to make sure that everyone is dead, kill them if they couldn't do the deed themselves, escape down to the caverns below and make sure the artifacts are intact, and then proceed to commit suicide to complete the ritual. This is extremely important towards the story because without this event, it wouldn't have such a massive cultural

Alfred, in the old English meaning “Elf wise”, was born a prince on his mothers’ side. He was also born very weak and continuously had health problems throughout his life and although his statues make him look like a warrior, it was his brain that was regarded as warrior—like.

In her poem “The Golden Age”, Aphra Behn divides nature from civilization, almost in a biblical sense of Eden and after-Eden. Nature and civilization are separated as a positive and negative experience where love is dishonoured, and sin takes over Earth. Through this before and after division, Behn shows how the fall of mankind led to the oppression of the female sex as woman, associated with love, kept the world pure until man, associated with honour, took over. Thus creating “Pleasure, Nature’s worst Disease” (148). When Nature is overpowered by civilization, gender issues arose. This division of gender issues sets women up to be a tease or object of pleasure rather than an equal lover who is free to her own sexuality. “The Golden Age” presents the fall of natural order with the rise of man.