This is the book that inspired Wake Up, the World’s on Fire, since some of you later asked.
More specifically, this selection:
In the chapter The Myth of War is quoted this passage from the Nov. 18, 1822 London Observer :
It is estimated that more than a million bushels of human and inhuman bones were imported last year from the continent of Europe into the port of Hull.The neighborhood of Leipzig, Austerlitz, Waterloo, and all of the places where, during the late bloody war, the principle battles were fought, have been swept alike of the bones of the hero and the horse which he rode.
Thus collected from every quarter, they have been shipped to the port of Hull and thence forwarded to the Yorkshire bone grinders who have erected steam-engines and powerful machinery for the purpose of reducing them to a granulary state.
In this condition they are sold to the farmers to manure their lands.
–London Observer, November 18, 1822, quoted in Samuel Hynes, The Soldiers’ Tale [New York: Penguin, 1977], p. 17.
[Room for repose.]
Here’s what else.
The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. –Thomas Paine
Paine gets quoted a lot of places, including here: ZeitgeistMovie.com
UPDATE: July 2008
I guess this book impacted more than I thought.
Afterwards, I entered a piece into a show at Ouch My Eye Studio.
The title of the show caught my interest. It was called “Apocalypse Now.”
You can see the piece. Evil Ha Ha Ha on Flickr here.
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