By James Aitchison His beguiling smile gave him the appearance of a doting uncle. “He wouldn’t even kill a chicken,” his friends said. But beneath the façade, Pol Pot was a mass murderer. His genocidal regime caused the deaths of…
By James Aitchison Famed for her lithe, legendary beauty, she pioneered modern contemporary dance. She performed across Europe, the United States and Russia. Arguably, today she is remembered more for the macabre — some say absurd — manner of her…
By: James Aitchison From 1270 to 1974, Ethiopia was ruled by a dynasty which claimed descent from the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. For 700 years, despite no evidence to support its legitimacy, the Solomonic Dynasty…
By: David R. Topper Note: This story is the sequel to Mud: Shtetl to Shoah, published in the Winnipeg Jewish Post & News, September 2023, pp. 34-38. As in Mud, the format is a dialogue between me and my imaginary…
By James Aitchison A white ruler of a savage jungle populated by headhunters; an English family dynasty controlling a far-flung outpost of the Empire. Something out of a boys’ adventure storybook? Or a Hollywood movie starring Errol Flynn? History brims…
By James Aitchison In the early 1930s, a middle-aged Oxford University professor sat down at his desk, reached for a blank sheet of paper, and scribbled the immortal words: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” The…
By James Aitchison Arguably, there has never been an author like him. He wrote more than 400 novels — many in a matter of days — as well as 21 volumes of memoirs and countless short stories. His sales topped…
By James Aitchison It’s hard to believe that the two men who wrote the best known, two-fisted, gun-slinging Western novels had such odd, even inappropriate names. One was named Pearl. The other, Clarence. They were born eleven years apart and…
By James Aitchison In 1975, Jack Higgins wrote The Eagle Has Landed, a fictional German plot to kidnap Winston Churchill from a Norfolk village. The movie starred Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, and Robert Duvall. A brilliant plot? Yes, and one…
By James Aitchison Think of American pop music and Nashville springs to mind. Or that iconic circular Capitol Records building in Los Angeles. Originally, though, New York was the undisputed home of American music. Before records, phonographs and radio, the…