Nobel Prize Museum Quotes

On my desk is an appeal from the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. It asks me to become a sponsor and donor of this soon-to-be-opened institution, while an accompanying leaflet has enticing photographs of Bob Dylan, Betty Friedan, Sandy Koufax, Irving Berlin, Estee Lauder, Barbra Streisand, Albert Einstein, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. There is something faintly kitsch about this, as there is in the habit of those Jewish papers that annually list Jewish prize-winners from the Nobel to the Oscars. (It is apparently true that the London Jewish Chronicle once reported the result of a footrace under the headline 'Goldstein Fifteenth.') However, I think I may send a contribution. Other small 'races' have come from unpromising and hazardous beginnings to achieve great things—no Roman would have believed that the brutish inhabitants of the British Isles could ever amount to much—and other small 'races,' too, like Gypsies and Armenians, have outlived determined attempts to eradicate and exterminate them. But there is something about the persistence, both of the Jews and their persecutors, that does seem to merit a museum of its own.

the one with the lower rate. A few unique things to see in Stockholm include the Nobelmuseet, the Nobel Museum, which tells of the creation of the Nobel Prize and the creativity of its laureates, and the Spiritmuseet, where you can learn about the nation’s complicated relationship with alcohol. Sweden is associated with design (and not just Ikea) and many shops sell Swedish‐only design. Oudoor activities in summer include hiking trails through the islands and archipelago. Winter activities stretch to cross‐country skiing, ice skating and snow hiking. Nightlife is expensive, cover charges to bars can be high and, bizarrely, the minimum age for drinking varies in an arbitrary fashion as it is up to each establishment to make its own decision – it can be anything from 17 to 27. So take identification with you. There are two airports serving Stockholm. Arlanda is 40 kms north of the city and serves main airlines. Skavsta, 100 kms to the south, serves the budget airlines. Both airports have coaches to take visitors directly to the city centre. Downside: Many independently owned restaurants and cafes close for holidays between July and August which can limit the range of places to eat. To read: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. This trilogy of a financial journalist and the tattooed genius with a motive to fight the dark right‐wing forces of Swedish society romped through the bestseller lists.

Luxor attack in 1997 in which Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya killed fifty-eight tourists and four Egyptians outside a pharaonic temple. In the same year, an ambush near the Egyptian museum in downtown Cairo by the group took the lives of nine tourists. In 1995, eighteen Greek tourists had been killed close to the Pyramids. But the violence was not only directed at the ‘infidel Westerners’ (though they, and the tourism industry, were especially prized victims). Egyptians also suffered: between 1982 and 2000, more than 2,000 Egyptians died in terror attacks – from the speaker of parliament to a number of secular writers and commentators (for example, Farag Foda, a prominent and controversial writer, was assassinated in 1992, and in 1994 an assassination attempt was made against Egypt's Nobel Literature Laureate Naguib Mahfouz), to a series of senior police officers,39 and children caught up in the blasts.

Another step came when, starting in 1314, the Venetian state began to take over and nationalize trade. It organized state galleys to engage in trade and, from 1324 on, began to charge individuals high levels of taxes if they wanted to engage in trade. Long-distance trade became the preserve of the nobility. This was the beginning of the end of Venetian prosperity. With the main lines of business monopolized by the increasingly narrow elite, the decline was under way. Venice appeared to have been on the brink of becoming the world’s first inclusive society, but it fell to a coup. Political and economic institutions became more extractive, and Venice began to experience economic decline. By 1500 the population had shrunk to one hundred thousand. Between 1650 and 1800, when the population of Europe rapidly expanded, that of Venice contracted. Today the only economy Venice has, apart from a bit of fishing, is tourism. Instead of pioneering trade routes and economic institutions, Venetians make pizza and ice cream and blow colored glass for hordes of foreigners. The tourists come to see the pre-Serrata wonders of Venice, such as the Doge’s Palace and the lions of St. Mark’s Cathedral, which were looted from Byzantium when Venice ruled the Mediterranean. Venice went from economic powerhouse to museum. I