My family and I are very much enjoying The Crown, a historical drama on Netflix, detailing the reign of Elizabeth II, the interactions of the royal family and the state of Britain from before the royal wedding of Philip and Elizabeth. It is a wonderful series with excellent cinematography, acting and storytelling. It is a […]
Author: Nicholas Woode-Smith
Crowdfunding Warpmancer Re-Release
I started writing the Warpmancer Series in 2009. Back then, the book was going to be called “The Trooper” and was going to be a stand-alone. As I approached finishing it in 2013, I realised that it needed to be a series. First, I called the planned series “The Terra War Saga”. Fortunately, I realised […]
Machiavelli’s The Prince Today
Machiavelli’s The Prince has risen to become one of history’s most controversial books. Its contents are, no doubt, seen as immoral to our modern sensibilities, but where the controversy arises, is the value of Machiavelli’s study. This essay will be arguing that Machiavelli’s empirical examination of the machinations of power is highly valuable, not only […]
Energy and the Apartheid State
Modern industry and commerce rely on energy to function. In South Africa, this energy sector was dominated, throughout the period of 1948 to 1994, by state-led power suppliers, most notably, the Electrical Supply Commission (Escom) and Sasol. In addition, there was the Atomic Energy Corporation (AEC). These companies made up the bulwark of the energy […]
Parastatals and Energy in South Africa
Politics and the social fabric of society are very much interlinked with economics. In the words of Lenin, states and other key economic players want to maintain control over the “commanding heights” to exert their will over the country.[1] In South Africa, these commanding heights refer to the Mineral-Energy Complex (MEC).[2] In mining rested the […]
ANC Anti-Poverty Initiatives
The African National Congress’s (ANC) rise to power in 1994 saw a monumental increase in efforts to combat poverty and inequality. Their election campaign had been centred around uplifting the welfare of South Africans, with a backdrop of the promises of the Freedom Charter.[1] In practice, the ANC has failed to effectively solve poverty in […]
Apartheid and Rural Poverty
Apartheid’s planning and social engineering stratified the majority of the South African population, disallowing them opportunities and the means to uplift themselves from the poverty that, for the most part, apartheid had caused. For a myriad of reasons, that would need their own paper to explain adequately, apartheid planners systematically forced a large portion of […]
Gender Relations in South Eastern Nigeria production
Economies and agrarian systems evolve due to a myriad of factors. Gender relations are often a product of economic systems and a contributing factor themselves. This essay will outline Susan Martin’s argument of how gender relations affected production in South Eastern Nigeria. This will be done by examining the methods of production in regards to […]
Perspectives of underdevelopment in Africa
Africa’s relative lack of development has been cause for much debate over the historical factors that have led to their economic status. This essay will be contrasting two views on the matter: the dependency theory of Walter Rodney and the views of Jean-François Bayart and Stephen Ellis. The essay will accomplish this, firstly through outlining […]
Institutions and Famine in Communist China and Postcolonial India
Historically, famine was thought to be a disaster of nature, damaging human creation. All we could do was weather the storm. Famine was seen as a dramatic decline in food supply. This conception is called Food Availability Decline (henceforth: FAD).[1] In the last century, this conception has changed. With the examination of communist China and […]